Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.]

PRIVATE BILLS.

The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS reported that in accordance with Standing Order 87, he had conferred with the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords, for the purpose of determining in which House of Parliament the respective Private Bills should be first considered, and they had determined that the Bills contained in the following list should originate in the House of Lords, namely:

Coventry Corporation.
Newcastle and Gateshead Waterworks.
Pembrokeshire County Council.
Report to lie upon the Table.

Oral Answers to Questions — UTILITY CLOTHING.

Sir John Mellor: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the second word "not" in Article 10 of the Utility Apparel (Maximum Prices) Order, 1941, was inserted by accident or design; and whether he will explain the intention of the article?

The President of the Board of Trade (Sir Andrew Duncan): By design, Sir. The amounts in the Schedule are intended as the net figures after deduction of discount for cash or settlement. Article 10 permits the gross price for these goods to exceed the amount specified in the Schedule when payment is not made so as to earn the discount.

Sir J. Mellor: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the wording of this Article has caused a good deal of doubt and difficulty to the trade, and will he take steps to remove such doubts and difficulties?

Sir A. Duncan: Yes, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

NATIONAL ANTHEM (PLAYING).

General Sir George Jeffreys: asked the Secretary of State for War what fresh instructions have been issued with regard to the playing of the National Anthem?

The Secretary of State for War (Captain Margesson): As my hon. and gallant Friend is aware, King's Regulations provide that the first six bars of the National Anthem should normally be played pianissimo. Approval has now been given for these bars to be played fortissimo when circumstances make this desirable.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend say how the change over from fortissimo to pianissimo originally came to be made, and is this not a very excellent and a commonsense amendment?

Mr. Shinwell: Does this mean that the Government are at last waking up?

AUXILIARY TERRITORIAL SERVICE.

Sir T. Moore: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will give an assurance to the House, that every care is being taken to safeguard the physical, moral and spiritual welfare of the women in the Auxiliary Territorial Service?

Captain Margesson: Yes, Sir. The comprehensive system of welfare services administered by the Director-General of Welfare extends to all units of the Auxiliary Territorial Service. Moreover, in addition to the general expenditure on Welfare and education in which the Auxiliary Territorial Service have their full share, funds have been specially allocated to providing extra comforts and conveniences for Auxiliary Territorial Service quarters. Lectures on moral welfare and hygiene are given to Auxiliary Territorial Service officers, and it is impressed on them that their first duty is the care and well-being of the women under their command.

Sir T. Moore: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that this answer will do a great deal to silence ignorant criti cism and to comfort anxious parents?

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: Will the officers of the A.T.S. look after the comfort of the personnel?

Captain Margesson: Yes, Sir.

Viscountess Astor: Does my right hon. and gallant Friend not think that it would be a little more practical to see that the A.T.S. do not have wet canteens, which is worrying the mothers far more than the question of giving lectures? [Interruption.] I can only tell my right hon. and gallant Friend that I am speaking for many of the mothers.

Mr. Messer: Is the Minister satisfied with the number of welfare officers, and are the welfare officers who are appointed drawn from those who have had previous experience?

Captain Margesson: I have had no complaints as to numbers or the experience of welfare officers.

Rear-Admiral Beamish: Are there any real grounds for these insinuations about the moral welfare of these young women, and is it not a fact, and has it not been truly said, that when vices leave us we think we have reformed?

Captain Margesson: There is absolutely no foundation whatsoever for this whispering campaign, which I regret very much indeed, as they are a fine body of women who are doing a fine job of work.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is now in a position to make any further statement on the practicability of establishing a system of immobile units in the Auxiliary Territorial Service?

Captain Margesson: This proposal has been re-examined, but it has been decided that any advantages that it may possess are outweighed by the difficulties referred to in the answer given to my hon. and gallant Friend on 14th October. Every effort will, however, be made to post Auxiliary Territorial Service personnel to the vicinity of their homes so far as military requirements permit.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: If any further evidence is produced, will the Secretary of State investigate it?

Mr. Mathers: Will applications receive consideration on domestic grounds for those already in the A.T.S.?

Captain Margesson: We always do our best.

Miss Eleanor Rathbone: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman recognise that

the women of the A.T.S. think with pride not only of the A.T.S. but of the military command to which they are attached, and that is a sentiment that should be encouraged because it is easier to be attached to a particular Army unit than to the whole body?

Captain Margesson: I am aware of all that.

Sir Leonard Lyle: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Auxiliary Territorial Service girls at the training centres need 100 male noncommissioned officers and men for each 1,000 women; and whether, in view of the efforts to increase the strength of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, and with the object of using man-power elsewhere, he proposes to dispense with the services of most of these male supervising officers and replace them with efficient women?

Captain Margesson: A male cadre was provided for each Auxiliary Territorial Service training centre, in order to assist in the administrative control and training of Auxiliary Territorial Service recruits and, in particular, to provide instruction and supervision for the Auxiliary Territorial Service officers and other ranks selected as potential permanent staffs at these centres. It was never the intention to retain the male instructional cadres indefinitely, and they will be gradually withdrawn as soon as circumstances permit. The process of withdrawal will begin early in 1942.

Sir L. Lyle: Does not my right hon. and gallant Friend think that the proportion of males to females, one to 10, is rather too heavy, in view of the fact that the A.T.S. was designed to relieve men for the Services?

Mr. Bellenger: What is the purpose of these male cadres? Is it to teach girls how to march and salute?

Captain Margesson: It is to render general assistance at the beginning of this process.

PRIVATE SOLDIER'S DETENTION.

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Secretary of State for War upon what dates the illegal detention from 10th August to 19th August of a private of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps was reported to the Aldershot Command and to the War


Office, respectively; and upon what date this soldier's account was credited with pay and allowances for the period of his illegal detention?

Captain Margesson: The soldier in question was found guilty by court-martial on two charges, first, that he failed to ensure that £1 10s. was handed over to unit accounts, and, secondly, that he fraudulently converted to his own use a sum of approximately £12 belonging to the soldiers' canteen. He was sentenced to reduction to the ranks and six months' detention. The conviction on the first and lesser charge was subsequently quashed, and four months of the detention award was remitted. The soldier should therefore have been released on 10th August. Unfortunately there was some delay in communicating this decision to the officer commanding the detention barracks, with the result that the man was not released until 19th August. His pay was resumed with effect from that date. The fact that owing to an oversight on the part of the unit he had not been credited with the pay due to him during his last 10 days of detention was first brought to the notice of the War Office by my hon. Friend's Question. Instructions were issued forthwith that the soldier's account should be credited with the arrears of pay due together with an additional ex-gratia payment of £5 compensation in respect of the period of unauthorised detention.

Sir J. Mellor: While I thank my right hon. and gallant Friend for his reply, will he state whether cases of illegal detention are automatically reported to the War Office, and is he quite satisfied that there was no attempt to hush up this case locally?

Captain Margesson: No, Sir, there was no attempt whatsoever to hush up this case locally. In answer to the first part of my hon. Friend's Question, I would point out that illegal detention should not, of course, take place.

Sir J. Mellor: When illegal detention is discovered to have taken place, should it not be automatically reported to the War Office?

Captain Margesson: I am not sure about automatically, but it should come to our attention. In this case a series of mishaps has taken place.

Mr. Silverman: Who assesses the compensation of £5 for 10 days' illegal imprisonment?

Captain Margesson: I said it was an ex-gratia payment.

MEDICAL CATEGORY C.

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Secretary of State for War whether soldiers in medical category C can be discharged to take up civil occupations, in view of their uncertain value to the Army under active service conditions?

Captain Margesson: Many soldiers of medical category C are at present performing useful service in the Army by freeing men of higher categories for more active duties, and in view of the present manpower situation, I could not agree to automatic discharge in all such cases. Where, however, application is made for the release of an individual for work of national importance, the soldier's medical category is naturally taken into account in deciding whether release should be authorised.

Mr. Bellenger: Does that Answer imply that where a man has been doing really valuable service as a civilian before he was called up, and has been graded in category C when he joined the Forces and is doing a comparatively insignificant job, there is no possibility of releasing him to carry on with his civilian duties?

Captain Margesson: I do not accept the term "comparatively insignificant job."

YOUNG SOLDIERS (TRAINING).

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Secretary of State for War whether the young men in the lowest age group, now to be called up, are to be segregated for purpose of training in young soldiers' battalions, or whether they are to join infantry training centres?

Captain Margesson: The young men in question will be sent to training establishments of the various arms. The intention is that they will there join young soldier companies, and after their preliminary training will be posted to young soldier battalions. For the first year of their service, therefore, they will be segregated from men in the higher age groups.

Mr. Bellenger: Will the Minister give more consideration to the training pro-


gramme of these young men who in the past have been segregated to guard vulnerable points and other such boring duties? Will he not take into account the fact that these young men are very keen and wish to have proper training?

Captain Margesson: Yes, Sir, I am very well aware of that.

Major Owen: Will the Minister take into account the danger of giving these young soldiers far too heavy work, as was the case in the last war? Will he look into this matter very carefully, as a very large number of boys of 18 years of age who served in the last war suffered from valvular disease of the heart as a result of their heavy training?

Captain Margesson: Most certainly that matter will be watched, but we have had some experience since the last war in the training of young soldiers.

ANTI-AIRCRAFT BATTERY SITES, WEST SCOTLAND.

Major Lloyd: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that, Owing to long delays in the execution of contracts, many anti-aircraft battery sites in the West of Scotland lack adequate water supplies, lighting and sanitary arrangements; that these delays are largely due to the system of placing contracts for hutments, battery sites, etc., with civilian contractors, and to the fact that as War Office contracts insist on only 60 hours overtime, whilst no limit of overtime is stated by other Government Departments or by local authorities, contract labour fights shy of War Office contracts: and whether, in view of the fact that, in many instances, the men are living under unsatisfactory and unhealthy conditions, he. will take steps to improve the position?

Captain Margesson: I am aware that there have been delays in the execution of contracts in the West of Scotland. These delays, however, are due to the general shortage of labour and materials and not to the system of placing contracts with civilian contractors. The limitation of hours of work to 60 a week is in accordance with Government policy, and there is an arrangement with local authorities On similar lines. As regards the last part of the Question, I can assure

my hon. and gallant Friend that every effort is being made to improve the position.

Mr. Woodburn: Is the Minister aware that there are firms in the West of Scotland which complain that they are not obtaining a sufficient number of Government contracts?

Captain Margesson: No, Sir, I am not aware of that.

INFANTRY DIVISIONAL COMMANDERS (AVERAGE AGE).

Sir A. Knox: asked the Secretary of State for War, what is now the average age of a commander of an infantry division in the British Army; and whether he has any information as to the average age of such a commander in the Russian, German and Japanese armies, respectively?

Captain Margesson: The average age of an infantry divisional commander in the British Army is 48½. The estimated average age of German and Japanese infantry divisional commanders is 54 in each case. Very little information is-available with regard to the ages of Russian divisional commanders, but it is not thought that any are over 45.

ROYAL ORDNANCE FACTORIES (AUXILIARY CONSTABULARY).

Mr. F. Anderson: asked the Secretary of State for War the result of his inquiries into the wage conditions of the auxiliary constabulary employed at Royal Ordnance Factories.

Captain Margesson: I regret that I am not yet in a position to make a statement on this question, which involves a number of difficult considerations. It is hoped that a decision will be reached shortly.

Mr. Anderson: What does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman mean by "shortly"?

Captain Margesson: I am afraid I cannot be more precise. I recognise that there has been considerable delay, but a number of difficult considerations are involved.

Mr. Anderson: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that there is very serious discontent among various auxiliary policemen at not getting what they regard as a fair practical Wage?

CONNEL FERRY BRIDGE, NORTH ARGYLL.

Major McCallum: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware of the handicap of farmers in North Argyll owing to the preservation of peacetime restrictions on the use of the road section of Connel Ferry Bridge; and whether, in view of the Government's policy that the agricultural industry is as important to the country as the Armed Forces, he will take steps to have these restrictions removed for the duration of the war?

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Westwood): I am aware that certain peace-time restrictions on the use of Connel Ferry Bridge still remain, although a number have been removed since the beginning of the war. My right hon. Friend is, however, in consultation with the Minister of War Transport as to the possibility of further improvements of facilities, in so far as this may be consistent with the safety of the bridge.

Major McCallum: Will the hon. Gentleman remind his right hon. Friend that the traffic which used that bridge has now to make a detour of 100 miles, in these days of petrol shortage? Will he bear that in mind when discussing that with the Minister of War Transport and see that there are no restrictions beyond safety restrictions?

Mr. Westwood: I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that we are aware of the difficulties connected with transport as far as the Connel Ferry Bridge area is concerned, and we are keeping all these facts in mind in the consultations that we are having with the Minister of Transport, who is directly responsible.

Mr. Maxton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Ministry of War Transport says there is no need for removing these restrictions and that it is a scandalous waste of time and petrol? There is nothing needed except to put up a notice limiting it to vehicles under a certain weight.

Mr. Westwood: I am not aware of the difficulties mentioned. Already some of the restrictions have been removed which operated in peace-time, and we are in consultation with the Minister of War Transport with a view to getting still further restrictions removed.

Mr. Stephen: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Minister of Transport said that the present practice is being maintained in order to provide profits?

Mr. Westwood: I am not aware of that.

DOMESTIC COAL SUPPLIES, LINLITHGOW.

Mr. Mathers: asked the Secretary for Mines why the normal sources of supply of house-coal to certain districts in the county of Linlithgow were stopped without warning and without alternative supplies being made available from other sources; whether he will take immediate steps to remedy this position and to prevent its recurrence?

The Secretary for Mines (Mr. David Grenfell): It has been necessary recently to reorganise house-coal supplies in Scotland on a more systematic basis in the interests of transport economy, and I regret that some temporary difficulty in the county of Linlithgow should have resulted from this. Steps have already been taken to remedy the position which, I am assured, is now satisfactory.

Mr. Mathers: Will my hon. Friend take into account the fact that an actual mistake was made here, and will he try to exercise through his Department greater supervision, in order that such mistakes may not be made by men acting without consultation with those most concerned?

Mr. Grenfell: I am not quite sure whether a mistake was made but I am sure my Department will put right such mistakes when brought to their attention.

Mr. Thorne: Is my hon. Friend aware that a little time ago he issued instructions that people should stock as much coal as they could, and now it is. reported that he has ordered an examination to find out how much they have in their cellars?

Mr. Grenfell: It is not the intention to regard stocking as unwise. My hon. Friend need not be unduly alarmed about the announcement in the papers to-day.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL DEFENCE.

DETAINEES (INSURANCE BENEFITS).

Mr. David: Adams asked the Minister of Labour what steps he. proposes to take to ensure that persons


detained under Regulation 18B who, before detention, were entitled to unemployment benefits, shall not, owing to their inability to make contributions to the Insurance Fund during internment, be denied their claims to such benefit upon release?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): I am not at present satisfied that there is a good case for making any alteration in the law on this point, but if my hon. Friend will let me have further information as to why he thinks any change is justified, I will look into the matter further.

Mr. Adams: As these persons have not been sentenced by a court of law, does not my hon. Friend agree that they should not thus be deprived of their civil rights?

Mr. Tomlinson: The whole question is bristling with difficulties as far as the law is concerned, and unless there is some very good reason forthcoming it would be difficult to justify an alteration.

Mr. David Adams: asked the Minister of Health what steps he proposes to take to ensure that persons detained under Regulation 18B who, before detention were entitled to National Health Insurance benefits, shall not, owing to their inability to make contributions to the Insurance Fund during internment, be denied their claims to such benefits upon release?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): Regulations will shortly be made under powers conferred by Section 8 of the National Health Insurance Act, 1941, by which such persons will be given an opportunity to safeguard their health insurance and contributory pensions rights by paying, within a reasonable period after their release, contributions at a reduced rate for the period of their detention. The reduced rate of contribution payable in these circumstances makes due allowance for the fact that such persons are not in a position to obtain health insurance benefits during their detention.

Mr. Adams: Will the Ministry facilitate their re-employment, in order that they may make those contributions?

Miss Horsbrugh: I am afraid that that is another point.

Mr. Messer: I take it that the hon. Lady will see that, when these people come out of detention, as they will not have a job to go to, there will be a lapse of time before they fall properly into arrear?

Miss Horsbrugh: Certainly.

WET CANTEENS (YOUNG PERSONS).

Viscountess Astor: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the provisions in the Intoxicating Liquor (Sale to Persons under Eighteen) Act, 1923, for the prevention of sale to young persons under 18 years of age will be made to apply in the regulations controlling the supply of liquor in canteens which are opened under Regulation 60AA; and whether he will insist on providing young people employed at places of work where liquor canteens are established, with separate well-appointed canteens in which meals and non-alcoholic beverages can be obtained?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): Steps are already being taken to see that special attention is paid in the running of these canteens to the interests of young people. Any arrangement which would facilitate drinking by young people would be entirely contrary to the purposes of the scheme, and the question of inserting in the authorisations, any necessary or appropriate conditions regarding persons under the age of 18 will be kept in mind. I do not know how far it may be practicable to establish separate canteens for young people, but I will confer with the Departments concerned on this point.

Viscountess Astor: When will my hon. Friend publish this scheme, so that people can see it?

Mr. Peake: The Noble Lady will be aware that full statements have been made in the House, in answer to Questions, by the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland. The conditions laid down are so stringent that I think everybody is satisfied with them.

Viscountess Astor: Does my hon. Friend really think that people are satisfied, and does he not realise that unless he makes some absolute rule, the young people, if they have only wet canteens, will ten to one take what they ought not to and break the rule of the company?

Mr. Magnay: Did not the Home Secretary say he would publish a full statement of what was intended by this Order? That was four weeks ago, and we have not seen it yet.

Mr. Peake: If my hon. Friend had studied the OFFICIAL REPORT, he would have seen the statement for which he asks.

CIVILIAN POPULATION (DEFENCE INSTRUCTIONS).

Sir L. Lyle: asked the Home Secretary whether the instructions to the civilian population in this country, in case of invasion, were compiled before the Germans shot civilians, men, women and children, without regard to age, when retreating from Rostov; and whether the civilian population will now be advised that, as they will be faced with unavoidable destruction, they should sell their lives as dearly as possible?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security (Miss Wilkinson): The answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. In regard to the second part, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by the Prime Minister to a Question he put on 3rd December.

Sir L. Lyle: Are the Government satisfied that the pamphlet which has been issued is adequate for the situation, and, summarised, does not that pamphlet simply say that we should do nothing?

Miss Wilkinson: I do not think that that is so, but in any case there is no point in giving our plans away so far in advance.

Sir L. Lyle: Cannot we give some training to the civil population?

CAMOUFLAGE.

Sir Francis Fremantle: asked the Home Secretary whether he will arrange for the Royal Air Force in all non-operational flights in this country to report on any buildings defectively camouflaged to the Regional Commissioner or Minister of Home Security?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security (Mr. Mabane): Observation for the purpose of camouflage cannot be undertaken

casually. At present the R.A.F. cooperate in the manner suggested by my hon. Friend by providing flying facilities for expert observation in close and constant contact with the Director of Camouflage. These arrangements are at present being extended.

Sir F. Fremantle: Does my hon. Friend realise that in ordinary flights the air officers often find that the buildings which they are most able to see are those that are supposed to have been camouflaged and are wrongly camouflaged? Surely that information could be made useful?

Mr. Mabane: This is a matter of observation, and casual observations of the character mentioned really could not be taken into account.

PASS SYSTEM.

Captain Gammans: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is satisfied with the present position regarding special passes issued to Government servants and others engaged on war work; and whether in particular he will consider insisting on a greater standardisation of passes, and that passes should only be valid for a stated definite period so that a periodical check up might be made in the interests of national security?

Captain Crookshank: I have no reason to suppose that the pass system is not working satisfactorily. The circumstances of Departments vary considerably from the point of view of security, and for that reason I do not think that a standard form of pass is desirable. I understand that in many Departments the period of validity is limited.

Captain Gammans: Is not the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that there are at least a dozen kinds of passes and that so long as the present system is in operation it is very difficult to ensure absolute security in the issue and control of passes?

Captain Crookshank: I do not think I can accept that statement, and I do not think it is sensible to say that the security provisions should necessarily be the same at the Admiralty and the Tithe Redemption Commission.

HOSPITAL STAFFS.

Major Owen: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the shortage of nurses and domestic staffs in hospital, he is prepared to recognise such service as a form of National Service?

Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, Sir; I recognise service on the nursing and domestic staffs of hospitals as one of the most important forms of National Service. It is included in the short list of vital war work for women for which women registered under the Registration for Employment Order are required.

Major Owen: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many hospitals are short of domestic staff? Is it not a corollary of this Order that the Minister will now be able to direct women with experience of domestic service to these hospitals, as he is able to do into the Armed Forces?

Mr. Tomlinson: I should require notice of that Question.

Sir Joseph Lamb: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the women who are being sent now are daily workers, who arrive at 8 o'clock and leave at 5; consequently there is no one to take charge of the early or late work?

Mr. Tomlinson: Hospitals, like all other institutions and industrial organisations, are having to do the best they can with the material available.

Sir J. Lamb: With the best will in the world, how can they wait till 8 o'clock to give all the patients their breakfast?

Major Owen: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are institutions of this character which have no cook at all? The matron of one hospital, to my own knowledge, on Sunday last had not only to look after the dressing of the patients but to cook dinners for 14 people.

Mr. Messer: Before the Department considers compelling anyone to work at a hospital, will the hon. Gentleman do his best to see that the remuneration of the lower-paid staffs is improved?

Mr. Tomlinson: I will consider all the suggestions that have been made.

PROSECUTION (NORTH WEST LONDON).

Mr. Thorne: asked the Home Secretary whether he can give information in connection with the 12 men charged with conspiracy to defraud, forgery, etc., which was heard at a North-West police court on Tuesday, 9th December?

Mr. Peake: I have been unable to trace the case to which my hon. Friend refers, but if he will send me further particulars, I will have inquiry made.

Mr. Thorne: Does not the hon. Gentleman get all these paper cuttings sent to him?

GAMING-HOUSE PROSECUTION, LONDON.

Mr. Thorne: asked the Home Secretary whether he can give any information in connection with the police raid on the premises in Denman Street, W., the owners being charged at the Bow Street Police Court on 10th December with keeping the premises as a common gaming-house; how many names were taken by the police and how many times the same premises have been raided by the police within 11 days?

Mr. Peake: Thirty-seven persons, two principals and 35 frequenters, were charged. Thirty frequenters were bound over. The remainder, who had been bound over as a result of the previous raid on 28th November, forfeited their recognisances and were again bound over. The two principals were remanded for consideration of the question of summoning another principal, who was not present at the time of the raid.

CARROTS (PRICE).

Major Owen: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food why the farmer receives only 5s. 6d. per cwt., unwashed, and 6s. per cwt., washed, for carrots, while the retail price to the consumer is 18s. 8d. per cwt. and 23s. 4d. per cwt.; into whose pockets does the difference go; and whether, as this is a case of profiteering on the part of some intermediary, he will consider giving to the farmer a larger return for this produce?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Major Lloyd George): The producer prices quoted by my hon. and gallant Friend were correct in November, but the prices in December are 5s. 9d. unwashed and 6s. 3d. washed. The current retail prices as shown by returns collected by my Department are generally speaking lower than those quoted in the Question. With regard to the latter part of the Question, I would refer to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Price) on 10th December.

Major Owen: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that this time last year the farmer received 10s. a cwt. for his carrots and that the price to the consumer was the same as it is to-day, namely, 2d. and 2½d. a pound? Who receives the difference, and is this a typical example of Government marketing?

Major Lloyd George: My hon. and gallant Friend quoted the prices of 2d. and 2½d., which, of course, are not the prices throughout the country. The average price is 2d., and, if anything, slightly less, and in many cases it is 1½d. I would add that the price is progressively increasing, and that in January it will be 6s. 6d. and in February 7s. The margins between grower and consumer are very little different from what they were before the war.

Mr. Silverman: Why does it cost 6d. per cwt. to wash carrots wholesale and 4s. 8d. to wash them retail?

HILL SHEEP SUBSIDY.

Major Owen: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the proposed subsidy of 7s. 6d. per head for Scottish hill sheep is to be made applicable to hill sheep in Wales and England?

Mr. Boulton (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. Yes, Sir. I am sending my hon. and gallant Friend a copy of a Press notice, issued on 9th December, which sets out the conditions under which the subsidy of 7s. 6d. per ewe will be payable in respect of flocks of hill sheep in England and Wales during the coming year.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

FAR EAST OPERATIONS.

Sir Henry Morris-Jones: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any units of the German fleet have been engaged with Japan in recent actions in the Pacific and the Far East; and whether he has any information to give as to the exact cause of the sinking of H.M.A.S. "Sydney"?

The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. A. V. Alexander): No information is available in the Admiralty to support the suggestion in the first part of the Question. The answer to the second part is in the negative.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the suggestion made in some organs of the Press that the "Sydney" was sunk by a Japanese man-of-war three weeks before war was declared?

Mr. Alexander: Suggestions in the Press are often valuable, but in this case we rely upon official information. With regard to the suggestion about this Australian ship, it is always necessary before we make any statement or issue any information that we should consult the Australian Government.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: Has the right hon. Gentleman any information at all as to the cause of the sinking of the "Sydney"?

Mr. Alexander: I have nothing to add to what I have already said.

H.M.S. "PETEREL," SHANGHAI (GALLANTRY).

Sir H. Morris-Jones: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has any statement to make to the House about the gallant conduct of the commander of a British gun-boat in Shanghai in face of a surprise attack by superior Japanese naval forces?

Mr. Alexander: I regret that I am unable to add to the information already published in the Press regarding this action. These reports show that the gallantry with which the Commanding Officer and ship's company of H.M.S. "Peterel" fought their ship in the face of overwhelming odds, was fully in accordance with the traditions of the Royal Navy.

LOSS OF H.M.S. "PRINCE OF WALES" AND "REPULSE."

Major Stourton: asked the Prime Minister whether, at the time of the sinking of H.M.S. "Prince of Wales" and "Repulse," these ships had an adequate sea or land-based fighter escort?

Commander: Sir Archibald Southby asked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to make a further statement regarding the circumstances of the loss of H.M.S. "Prince of Wales" and "Repulse"?

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Attlee): I regret that I am unable at present to add anything to the statements already made by the Prime Minister on this subject.

Major Stourton: Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that in future our great capital ships will not be hazarded in battle without adequate air protection?

Sir A. Southby: Did the responsible Naval Staff at the Admiralty advise that these two ships should go out accompanied by an aircraft carrier, and, if so, who over-rode their expert advice?

Mr. Attlee: That is a hypothetical question. I have stated already that I cannot add anything to the statement given by the Prime Minister. I have no further information.

Sir A. Southby: Will an opportunity arise to have this matter discussed in Public or in Secret Session?

Mr. Attlee: I would ask my hon. and gallant Friend to await a statement which I have to make on the question.

ECONOMIC WARFARE AND OVERSEAS TRADE.

Sir Herbert Williams: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of their reduced functions, he will consider the suppression of the Ministry of Economic Warfare and the Department of Overseas Trade; and the transference of their remaining duties to other Departments of State?

Mr. Attlee: No, Sir.

Sir H. Williams: Having regard to the fact that nearly every country in the world is now a belligerent and that there

are few people to conduct any economic warfare against, why retain a large Department to do a non-existent job?

Mr. Attlee: While there have been developments which have curtailed to some extent the scope of the Department, there is still a good deal of work to be done.

Sir H. Williams: As the main activity of the Government is to reduce the export trade, why have a Department to promote it?

ALLIES (CONCERTED WAR PLANS).

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Prime Minister whether any organisation has been set up to co-ordinate strategic and tactical plans for the most effective conduct of the war by all the major Allied Powers?

Mr. Attlee: All necessary steps have been or are being taken to concert the military plans of the major Allied Powers. It would not be helpful to the objects which the hon. Member has in mind to have a detailed discussion at the present time in public. Statements will, however, be made from time to time to Parliament of the progress achieved in the co-ordination of the Allied effort.

Mr. Bellenger: Would it not be desirable to have an early statement on the matter, as an impression is growing up that our policy is what the Prime Minister would term a one-by-one policy?

Mr. Attlee: I am sure that my hon. Friend will correct that impression, but I will convey the point to the Prime Minister.

MALAYA (AERODROMES, DEFENCE).

Mr. Wedgwood: asked the Prime Minister which Service Department was responsible for the defence of the aerodromes that have been captured by the Japanese in Malaya?

Mr. Attlee: The Army is responsible for the defence of aerodromes in Malaya.

Mr. Wedgwood: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there has been any change since our experiences in Crete and, if so, what change has been made?

Mr. Attlee: Perhaps the hon. Member will give notice of that Question?

INDUSTRIAL HEALTH RESEARCH BOARD.

Mr. Messer: asked the Lord President of the Council what are the name and the age of the secretary of the Industrial Health Research Board and what other appointments he holds; how many full-time investigators there are on the staff of the Board; how many possess medical qualifications; and what are their names and qualifications?

The Lord President of the Council (Sir John Anderson): The Secretary of the Industrial Health Research Board is Sir David Munro, who is 63 years of age. He is at present giving part of his time to the Ministry of Supply as Chief Medical Adviser, but in, view of that a senior member of the Board's investigating staff is acting as joint secretary. There are 13 full-time investigators, whose names and qualifications I shall circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT. None of these is medically qualified.

Mr. Messer: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that this important post ought to be a full-time job, especially in view of the fact that it was so during the last war?

Sir J. Anderson: Normally it is a full-time job, but, as I have explained, Sir David Munro is giving much needed help in the Ministry of Supply, and so far as his time is not available to the Industrial Health Research Board, the gap is filled by the temporary appointment of a senior member of the staff.

Mr. Messer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the grave dismay with which the public have received the report of the British Medical Association that not fewer than 32,000,000 weeks are lost each year by industrial workers through preventible illnesses?

Sir J. Anderson: I must point out that the Industrial Health Research Board is not primarily concerned with industrial disease, but with such matters as industrial fatigue and the like.

Mr. Messer: Exactly.

Following are the names:

Whole-time Investigators of the Industrial Health Research Board: T. Bedford, D.Sc.; Ph.D.; R. G. Chambers, M.A.; F. A. Chrenko; W. M. Dawson, B.Sc.; E. Farmer, M.A.; Miss Alice Heim, M.A., Ph.D.; D. E. R. Hughes, B.Sc.; R. Marriott, B.Sc.; Miss May Smith, D.Sc.; F. G. L. Stock; C. G. Warner, B.Sc., Ph.D.; H. C. Weston, M.J.I.E.; and S. Wyatt, D.Sc.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE.

INCOME TAX (POST-WAR CREDIT).

Mr. Woodburn: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will explain in what form the amount of the portion of tax for refund after the war credited to the individual taxpayer is made known to the worker; and how soon such information will be broadcast?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): A formal notice of the amount of his post-war credit for the year 1941–42 will be sent to each taxpayer as soon as possible after the amount of the credit has been ascertained. It will be appreciated, however, that in the case of income from employments payment of the tax itself is not completed until a considerable time after the end of the year of assessment. In the meantime an explanatory leaflet is being issued with every notice of assessment which will enable the taxpayer to make a rough calculation of the amount of the credit which will become due to him.

Mr. Woodburn: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider making a broadcast or having a broadcast made at an early date to explain this matter, because there is much scepticism among workers that this is a promise which will never be fulfilled?

Sir K. Wood: Yes, Sir. I will certainly consider that.

PURCHASE TAX (PROSECUTIONS).

Mr. Pearson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total amount of taxes recovered by court proceedings, or otherwise, from Purchase Tax evaders since the introduction of the Purchase Tax; and what is the number of prosecutions to the nearest convenient date.

Sir K. Wood: By 9th December there had been 93 Purchase Tax prosecutions, of which 29 related to the more serious


aspects of evasion and fraud, and 64 for failure to make returns by the due date. These 29 cases involved nearly £40,000 in tax and cost the offenders in fines alone over £12,000. In addition, nine of the offenders were sent to prison for from three to eighteen months. About 300 other special cases have been dealt with otherwise than by prosecution, resulting in the recovery of nearly £150,000. This, of course, is in addition to the day-to-day treatment of a large number of cases relating to late payment of tax and the like, involving considerable sums of money.

Mr. Pearson: In view of the large amounts involved, will my right hon. Friend see that the section of his staff which is dealing with this matter is kept up to full strength?

Sir K. Wood: Yes, Sir.

OVERTIME WAGES (TAXATION).

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has considered a letter sent to him by a conference of shipbuilding workers, held in Glasgow, and representing shipyards in Scotland and the North of England, calling for an exemption of overtime from Income Tax; and what steps does he intend to take?

Sir K. Wood: I have received a communication on the subject to which my hon. Friend refers; and I would refer him to the reply I gave on the subject to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) on 14th October last.

Mr. Gallacher: Will not the Chancellor of the Exchequer reconsider this matter, in view of the very harmful effect that this system is bound to have?

Viscountess Astor: May I ask since when it is that the Communist party has been against taxing incomes?

Mr. Gallacher: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer remember that these men have been asked to make an extra effort and to give of their best in this emergency? They are not thieving money like the bunch on the other side.

UNNECESSARY ADVERTISING EXPENDITURE.

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the costly advertising in national newspapers of goods which cannot be supplied during war-time; that this expenditure deprives the nation, in many cases, of large amounts which otherwise would be available for taxation; and whether he will take steps to prevent the advertising of goods which cannot be supplied and / or to prevent advertising the object of which is, in fact, to evade taxation?

Sir K. Wood: In so far as my hon. Friend raises the question of taxation, I would refer him to the reply I gave on 25th November last to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport (Sir R. Clarry). The other aspects of the question are matters for my right hon. Friends the President of the Board of Trade and the Minister of Supply.

Mr. Creech Jones: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of what appears to be systematic evasion by very expensive advertisements of articles which cannot possibly be supplied during the period of the war, and cannot something be done in order to stop that sort of evasion?

Sir K. Wood: Perhaps my hon. Friend will bring his cases to the notice of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.

Mr. Silverman: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how he reconciles his conflicting policies in this matter?

Mr. Hammersley: Is not this one of the most flagrant examples of the gross waste of necessary raw materials?

Sir K. Wood: My hon. Friend knows that as regards taxation I have certain powers to regulate this matter.

Viscountess Astor: Why not use them?

PARCELS FROM OVERSEAS.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many parcels forwarded to this country have been confiscated by the Customs and Excise officials owing to their being overweight; and what happens to all such parcels when confiscated.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Crookshank): As regards the first part of the Question, it would not be possible to ascertain the number of overweight parcels without extensive inquiries which I do not think would be justified. As regards the second part of the Question, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which I gave on 30th September last to the hon. Member for Walton (Mr. Purbrick).

CHURN LABELS (PURCHASE TAX).

Sir G. Jeffreys: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury why it has been decided that the tag labels used in collecting farmers' milk and in sending milk from the creameries to customers are now subject to Purchase Tax from which they have been hitherto free; whether he is aware of the extra cost thereby entailed; and whether he will consider the serious effect of this policy on the production price of milk?

Captain Crookshank: I assume that my hon. and gallant Friend is referring to labels attached to milk churns and containing the name of the consignee. These labels have been liable to Purchase Tax since the commencement of the tax. There is no reason to believe that the amount of tax involved has any material effect on the production price of milk.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Is it not a fact that up to quite recently anything used in the packing or despatch of food, including milk, was free of this tax, and in view of the large number of labels that have to be used, is not this certain to result in an increase in the price of milk in the very near future?

Captain Crookshank: These labels have been liable to tax ever since this tax has been in operation. As regards the cost, I am informed that the tax charged, including the printing, does not come to so much as 4s. per 1,000, and that it is much less in the case of labels printed in large quantities, and that does not seem to make it very likely to affect the price of milk.

Viscountess Astor: Suppose we stopped advertisements. That would help.

WAR SAVINGS CAMPAIGN (SPECIAL STRUCTURE, LONDON).

Captain Gammans: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury

whether, in view of the shortage of labour and materials, he is satisfied that the erection of a special building on Hampton's site in Trafalgar Square for the War Savings Campaign is necessary; and what steps were taken to try and secure suitable existing accommodation?

Captain Crookshank: The answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. War Savings efforts in Central London tend to radiate from Trafalgar Square, and the simple structure which is being erected will be of particular value as a propaganda and selling centre for the War Savings Campaign. No similar accommodation is available in the Square. I may add that this most valuable publicity site and the structure which is being erected on it have been given free of all cost to the National Savings Committee by Messrs. Hamptons for the duration of the War.

OLD AGE PENSIONS (WEST HAM).

Mr. Thorne: asked the Minister of Health the number of applications made for supplementary pensions in the County Borough of West Ham; the number granted and the average amount; the number of appeals against the determination; and the number of successful appeals?

Miss Horsbrugh: The information available is as follows: In the Assistance Board's administrative areas of West Ham I and II, which cover the County Borough of West Ham, supplementary pensions were being paid at the end of November, 1941, to or in respect of approximately 4,700 old age pensioners, including widow pensioners who have attained the age of 60. During November, fresh or repeat applications were received at the rate of about 50 a week, on which on the average about 45 supplementary pensions were granted, the remainder being rejected or withdrawn. During November, three appeals against the determinations made by the board's officers were lodged, and the determination was confirmed in every case. Information regarding the weekly amounts payable at particular offices is not available.

COLONIES (WAGES).

Mr. David Adams: asked the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that minimum wage laws have now been enacted in 40 Colonies, but that only in nine are any minimum wages actually in force; and whether, as the absence of such minimum standards is the cause of depressed living conditions, steps will be taken to encourage the implementing of minimum wage laws?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. George Hall): Yes, Sir. My Noble Friend is aware of the position as stated in the first part of the Question. He is, however, anxious that wherever possible the payment of adequate wages should be arranged by amicable agreement between the parties, without it becoming necessary to have recourse to the powers conferred by the minimum wage legislation. Every encouragement is being given by the Colonial Governments to the promotion of such collective bargaining, and in a very large number of cases adjustments of wages to meet fluctuations in the cost of living have been arranged without intervention on the part of the Government since the outbreak of war.

Mr. Adams: In view of the fact that in many Colonies no such organisation exists, surely, as the Minister has again and again recommended Governors to pursue a certain course, he might recommend in this case the establishment of minimum scales of wages?

Mr. Hall: In many Colonies there are no, or only small, industrial undertakings. If my hon. Friend will look into the matter further, he will see what is being done in most of the Colonies.

Mr. Silverman: Is the Minister not aware that in many Colonies the promotion of bodies designed to secure collective bargaining is in itself an act of sedition involving very heavy penalties? How can any Governor promote collective bargaining while legislation of that kind exists?

Mr. Hall: My hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. There are few Colonies to which that criticism applies. There are some, but we are endeavouring to deal with that matter.

Mr. Creech-Jones: Would my hon. Friend keep that point in mind, because many of our Colonies are purely agricultural and no industrial organisation is possible in them?

Mr. Hall: The liability to implement minimum wage legislation is being impressed upon all Colonial Governors who have not yet implemented it.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. Lees-Smith: May I ask the Lord Privy Seal whether he will make a statement upon Government Business for the remainder of this series of Sittings and why it is proposed to suspend the Rule to-day?

Mr. Attlee: We are suspending the Rule to-day in order to make certain of obtaining the Committee stage of the Supplementary Vote of Credit, the formal Ways and Means Resolution and the Second Reading of the Education (Scotland) Bill. We propose also to take the Cinematograph Films (Quota Amendment) Order, which is exempted Business. It is not expected that the House will be asked to sit late.
The Government realise that the changed situation and the Prime Minister's recent review have given rise to a demand for a Debate on the war before we separate for the Christmas Recess. We have certain essential Business to obtain, and have already arranged for two important Debates to take place. We must obtain the Committee stage of the Supplementary Vote of Credit to-day, and, in the view of the Government, the Debates on Dependants' Allowances and on the Home Guard should not be postponed. The Debate on the Home Guard was promised by the Prime Minister, and is necessary in order that the Secretary of State for War may proceed with his plans as early as possible. In effect, a large part of our time is already being devoted to Debates on various important subjects.
We are sitting on an additional day, and the Government believe that it would not be generally convenient to sit on another day or to meet for the sole purpose of passing the Motion for the Adjournment. We propose, therefore, that the Debate on the War Situation


should take place on the 4th Sitting Day in Secret Session. The House, at its rising that day, would then adjourn for the Christmas Recess.

Mr. Lees-Smith: I understand that the new scheme of registration for the 16–18 age-group will be brought into operation before the House meets again. Will the right hon. Gentleman endeavour to arrange some discussion on that subject?

Mr. Attlee: We propose to move the suspension of the Rule on the third Sitting Day, and we might very well find time for it on that day.

Sir Percy Harris: Will the Prime Minister be making a statement upon the general progress of the war, and, if so, will it be in private or public?

Mr. Attlee: The Prime Minister has already made a statement, and I understand that hon. Members wish to put their views before the Government, arising out of that statement. Therefore it would be inappropriate to make another statement.

Sir A. Southby: Do the Government propose to suspend the Rule on the day of the Debate upon the War Situation, in view of the fact that large numbers of Members wish to take part in this very important Debate?

Mr. Attlee: We can do so if it is the wish of the House.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: What is the first Order of Business which it is proposed to take to-day—the Vote of Credit or the Bill?

Mr. Attlee: The first Order is the Vote of Credit, and then there is the Education (Scotland) Bill.

Mr. Shinwell: Do the Government propose to make an initial statement on the fourth Sitting Day upon the circumstances which led to the loss of the "Prince of Wales" and the "Repulse"?

Mr. Attlee: No,. Sir. It is proposed that a statement be made later. I understand that many hon. Members would like to put their views first.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.

Francis Clifford Watt, Esquire, for the Burgh of Edinburgh (Central Division).

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

Considered in Committee.

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

SUPPLEMENTARY VOTE OF CREDIT, 1941.

EXPENDITURE ARISING OUT OF THE WAR.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,000,000,000, be granted to His Majesty, towards defraying the expenses which may be incurred during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1942, for general Navy, Army and Air Services and for the Ministry of Supply in so far as specific provision is not made there for by Parliament, for securing the public safety, the defence of the realm, the maintenance of public order and the efficient prosecution of the war, for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community and generally for all expenses, beyond those provided for in the ordinary Grants of Parliament, arising out of the existence of a state of war.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): This is the fourth occasion on which I have had to ask the Committee to approve a Vote of Credit of £1,000,000,000 for the financial year. Out of the £3,000,000,000 already voted, we had about £252,000,000 left on 13th December, and if expenditure continues at the same rate as in recent weeks, that balance, together with the Vote now asked for, will suffice until approximately the end of the financial year. Even in the circumstances of, say, a fortnight ago, however, it would not have been possible for me to estimate fully the rate of expenditure likely to obtain in the next three and a half months. With the considerable extension of the war into the Far East, it is obviously less practicable to advise the Committee just how long the new Vote will last. If further sums are required, I shall have to come to the Committee again in March, and I know that such demands will be readily granted.
The Committee will no doubt desire to be informed of the analysis of our current war expenditure. We have recently been spending at the rate of nearly £83,000,000 a week, or £11,750,000 a day. Of that, £9,000,000 was attributable to the Fighting Services and £2,750,000 to miscellaneous war services. When the last Vote of Credit was before the House, I explained the relation between our Vote

of Credit expenditure and the figure of £3,500,000,000 which I assumed for the purposes of my Budget speech. The Budget figure of £3,500,000,000 excluded whatever might have to be spent in the United States on the purchase of goods not covered by the Lease-Lend Act arrangements. This exclusion was made, as the Committee will appreciate, because I was then concerned primarily with such of our expenditure as would require domestic finance. The expenditure in the United States must, however, be charged to the Vote of Credit, and may be estimated—though the estimate must necessarily be very tentative at this time of the year—at about £300,000,000 for the whole year. If therefore we seem likely to spend about £4,000,000,000 on war services during the year, that figure must be compared with an estimate of something like £3,800,000,000 at the time of the Budget. In other words, our total expenditure may be some £200,000,000 greater than was anticipated at the time of the Budget. It should not, however, be assumed that the so-called "gap" has necessarily been increased by £200,000,000. We have to take into account a number of other important factors before the balance to be met out of new savings can be calculated, in particular the amount of our expenditure financed overseas, the amount provided from domestic capital sources, from extra-Budgetary sources and the out-turn of the Revenue compared with the Budgetary estimates. It would appear likely that the final balance to be met from new savings may be somewhat greater than I estimated at the time of the Budget, but it seems unlikely that the difference will be large in relation to the dimensions of the figures involved.
On the domestic side of our finance, namely, revenue and savings, I would first like to say a few words on the vital question of savings. On this occasion I will not quote figures to the Committee; I have done it so frequently before. In the first place, no figures are yet available which show the whole of our present great savings effort—because that is how we must regard it—in all its forms. It is perfectly true that we have figures which show the rate at which the smaller savings of individuals are being put, for instance, into Savings Certificates and the savings banks. We have also figures for investments in the larger securities, National War Bonds and Savings Bonds, not all of


which, of course, will represent savings out of current income. On the other hand, it is important to note that much individual saving goes on which is not necessarily lent to the Government through any of these securities, large or small. Some takes the form of regular payments to insurance companies or building societies, and may be lent to the Government by those institutions. Other savings accumulate in the banks, and help the banks to lend to the Government. Still other savings may remain, although, as I have already said, I wish they did not, as notes in tea-pots, under mattresses, and in all other kinds of receptacles. We cannot to-day put figures of all these forms of saving, though I hope later it will be possible to furnish the Committee with some estimate. But I think everyone will agree that the total amount of savings which has so far been achieved, and particularly in small sums, has been very impressive, and far greater than many at one time thought likely or possible. But it holds good of savings, as it does for the battlefield and the factory, that the only thing we can foretell with certainty is that still greater and more intensive effort will be necessary before victory is achieved, and that the effort will not be the country's best until everyone—I emphasise that, until everyone— pulls his or her weight. And we have not yet reached that high objective.
Out of many present incomes, and particularly out of the greatly increased incomes which are now being enjoyed by large numbers of our people, a great deal more can undoubtedly be saved and lent to the State. I have heard it said, for example, that perhaps a third of our people are saving on a scale that is fully adequate, that another third are saving on a moderately reasonable scale but might well save more, and that a third are either not saving at all or saving very small sums indeed. Whether these precise proportions are correct is, no doubt, a matter of opinion, but the direct evidence of observers does confirm that there are still large numbers who are not sharing in, or who are taking an inadequate share in, the. great savings effort which their fellow citizens are making.

Mr. Cove: What sections of the community?

Sir K. Wood: I do not wish to particularise. I would appeal to all who influence public opinion—Members of this Committee, leaders in our local life, employers and trade union representatives— to continue to do their utmost to drive home this paramount need for saving and lending to our country. We all want our war effort to be the effort of a people united in the firm will to work and produce to their utmost, secure in the knowledge that while they do so their standard of living will not be filched away from them by rising prices. Inflation is not an economists' bogy; it is a danger which, if allowed to develop, may threaten the very basis of the material welfare and the peace of mind of all of us. If it does that, it will also threaten the effectiveness of the war effort. To help to keep such consequences at bay is surely worth the really small effort, but a really important and a vital one, involved in refraining from spending what it is not absolutely necessary to spend. In this connection, I would again venture to refer the Committee to two matters I have so often emphasised. Our total expenditure during this war has now reached the colossal figure of some £8,300,000,000. We have a long and a hard war before us. It is more imperative than ever, first, that all waste and extravagance should be avoided, and, secondly, that all plans and projects not directly connected with the war effort, but involving appreciable extension of Government expenditure, should be considered in relation to the vital necessity of husbanding our resources and maintaining our financial strength.
As regards revenue, I cannot forecast the year's out-turn, but it is clear that, thanks mainly to the buoyancy of the Customs and Excise, the Budget Estimates will be appreciably exceeded. On the Customs side, the bulk of the increase so far has been provided by the Tobacco. Duties, while as regards Excise Duties, the increase is due mainly to the Purchase Tax and to the Beer Duties, though the Spirit Duties and Entertainments Duty have also helped that increase over the estimate. I am glad to inform the Committee that the main. Inland Revenue taxes are also doing will, but as the bulk of Income Tax and Surtax is payable later in the year, it is too early for me to venture on a prophecy under those


heads, or in relation to Excess Profits Tax.
In connection with direct taxation, I have an announcement to make which I think will interest the Committee. High taxation means that extra care has to be exercised in making provision against the time when it falls due. It also means that in so far as such provision is made gradually in advance, large sums of money accumulate in the banks and are in due course paid to the Treasury, much of them in the last quarter of the financial year. I have been considering whether I could not offer some machinery which would help taxpayers who have material sums to meet by direct payment to set aside those sums as their profits or income accrue. Some such assistance would be specially helpful, I think, to companies liable to Excess Profits Tax. It is, at the same time, desirable, if possible, to avoid the piling up of tax moneys in the banks, and to encourage their more even flow into the Exchequer. With this triple object in view, I have decided to issue a new special security which can be taken up for such amounts and at such times as any taxpayer finds most convenient. He will be able to tender it during a limited period in payment of certain taxes, and if it is so tendered, it will earn interest. The taxes in question will be Income Tax (other than Schedule E), Surtax, National Defence Contributions, Excess Profits Tax, Land Tax and War Damage Contributions.

Mr. Graham White: Will this security be issued at a discount?

Sir K. Wood: I will say a word about that later. Schedule E tax will not enter into the scheme in view of the existing arrangements for deduction of Income Tax at the source from salaries and wages. The security will be issued in units of £25 and multiples thereof. The scheme is practically complete and I hope to announce full details before the end of the month. This will answer the query of my hon. Friend the Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. Graham White). From the many requests which I have had and the communications which I have received, I have every confidence that the scheme will, for a large body of taxpayers, definitely ease the task of providing for the taxation which they now have to bear and will also be of considerable advantage to the State.
As we are approaching the period when the major part of the Income Tax will be collected, it is perhaps appropriate for me again to speak of the vital part which taxation plays in our war economy. Taxation to-day is such as to demand many sacrifices, but I know that these will be willingly borne. From the highest to the lowest incomes, we shall bo taking those contributions which, will certainly bring home to our people more than ever the financial implications of our stupendous war effort. Some millions of wage-earners will soon be paying Income Tax for the first time. Others of them will, like all other Income-Tax payers, be paying more this year than last. The necessity is plain. Our war taxation has not been imposed for its own sake. It is an integral part of the whole plan by which the country has been put on a war footing. War conditions necessarily mean that the money incomes of the community largely exceed the supply of goods and services on which those incomes can be spent. The greater our success in directing an ever-increasing proportion of our productive power to the war effort, the greater does that excess become, or, more accurately, the greater it would become if it were not corrected by, among other things, increased taxation. High taxation is indispensable in order to prevent the shortage of goods in war time leading to inflation.
It is not the only instrument on which we rely for this purpose. As the Committee is aware, we continue to take many steps through an elaborate system of controls and rationing to see that the limited supplies of essential goods are distributed fairly and made available at reasonable prices. But I would remind my hon. Friends that these measures will all fail to achieve their purpose if we neglect, on the financial side, to correct the excess of purchasing power. That we do, first by severe taxation, and, secondly, by the savings movement, and as the momentum of war production has increased, we have been bound to intensify our efforts in both those directions. Each of them has greatly contributed to the fact that in the midst of all our difficulties, we have been able, so far, to keep our finances and general economy on an even keel. The most striking proofs of this are to be seen in the low rate of interest at which we have borrowed, in our


maintenance of peace-time social services and in the steadiness of the cost of living.
Everyone in the country has benefited from these achievements, but just as the price of our liberty is eternal vigilance, so the price of our economic security is unrelenting sacrifice. There can be no faltering, either in our ready acceptance of taxation or in our firm determination to save. We may have little choice in the payment of our taxes, but the decision whether to save or spend is mainly ours alone, and in our private lives there is probably no daily question in which the taking of the right decision means so much for the welfare of our fellow-citizens, the maintenance of our firm financial front and the ultimate triumph of our cause.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has, with lucidity and comprehensiveness, put before us the financial position of the country to-day, and in the brief remarks which I propose to address to the Committee I should like, in the first place, to welcome most heartily the new scheme which the right hon. Gentleman has adumbrated. I think that when amounts have to be paid, in taxation, of such dimensions as those now being demanded, both in the figures themselves and in their proportion to the incomes on which they are imposed, the existing system of payment may present great difficulties, and a scheme of the kind which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is now proposing, by which these amounts will, in effect, be payable in instalments should be a relief and should prove of great advantage both to the taxpayer and to the Revenue. Of course, we shall await the details and in particular the rate of discount if there is to be any, before we can express final approval, but it seems to me that the scheme is one Which will be welcome and which is, I might almost say, overdue, and I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has taken a step in that direction.
There is no doubt whatever that these decisions which the House of Commons makes from time to time to put another £1,000,000,000 to the credit of the Government for the prosecution of the war are of supreme importance, but we take them now so much for granted that it is not necessary to go into great detail

in Debate in this Chamber. There are, however, one or two things which may be said with advantage. In the first place, with regard to the prospects for the future and the question of how much the Chancellor will be called on to pay out during the remainder of the financial year, I notice that the right hon. Gentleman was somewhat cautious. I do not wonder that that should be so, in view of what is happening not only in those Continents where war had already been raging, but in those in which it has now started to rage and may rage in the future. We now see nearly the whole world brought into the conflict. The areas which are still outside it are so small that we may speak of the war to-day as a world war in the literal sense.
The public, I think, want to know how far the new developments are likely to increase the actual war costs. It seems to me that there are three possible directions in which the actual cost of war might be increased. We might he involved in additional direct expenditure. We might be compelled to make good a certain withdrawal of help from the United States. We might be compelled to increase our aid to Russia, to make up for help which in other ways might be withdrawn. I gather from what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said, that although in one or in all of these elements the cost might be augmented, he does not seriously expect that it will be on a very large scale, comparatively to the vast expenditure to which we are already committed. That may seem strange to some people, and I think to the country generally, because this war in the East is not a little matter—it may be a very large matter. I suppose that the real answer is that when you are engaged in total war, the fact that your total war is obliged to take place in more than two continents does not necessarily, and, indeed, cannot, add very much to your total war effort or your total war expenditure. I suppose we may take it as more or less true, therefore, that our war expenditure, short of any inflationary process, if it has not exactly reached what you might call a peak, has, at any rate, reached nearly the maximum which it will reach during the remaining period. We have to face the fact that, for whatever time the war continues, somewhat in excess of £4,000,000,000 a year is the sum that the country will have to face.


I had already looked at the progress of Revenue; and my impression was confirmed by what the Chancellor has said, that we may certainly hope to reach the estimated Revenue, and probably some quite useful and substantial additions thereto.
But that will not take away in any degree the tremendous importance of saving, because, if once saving were inadequate to fill the gap between taxation and Revenue, inflation would begin, with disastrous consequences. I would like to join my voice with that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in urging that everything possible be done to avoid inflation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer made some interesting observations with regard to the fact that the public as a whole were divided between those who were doing their best and really saving manfully, those who were saving half-heartedly, and those who were not doing it at all. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove) asked how that was divided up between the different sections of the community. I have been thinking about that, not only while the Chancellor was speaking, but even before he began. This is my conclusion. I think that it affects all classes of the community except the very poor, who cannot in any circumstances save with advantage either to themselves or to the community, because if they were to try to do so, on their very meagre incomes, they would fall so far below the poverty line that not only would they suffer themselves, but the community would suffer through their malnutrition.
Let me begin with the well-to-do. When the war began, and Lord Simon, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, brought in his first Budget, I was of opinion that the taxation which he imposed was as much as could be borne in the earlier stages, because I knew quite well that, particularly among the very well-to-do, if there were to be any very large burden of new taxes imposed, they could not in a short period so readjust their living economy as to pay those taxes out of income. Since then, two and a quarter years have gone by, and I think the position is now very different. Many of the expenses of the very well-to-do consisted in payments to their staffs. Many of those staffs have been called up or have gone into munitions work, and the cost of paying their

wages has been relieved. In the second place, it has been possible to cut down commitments in various other ways. Many of the well-to-do who at the beginning of the war could not pay their way except by withdrawing capital—which is, of course, negative saving—ought now to have so far pulled in their method of life that they can not only meet the whole of their expenditure out of their income, and pay the whole of the very heavy taxation imposed upon them, but have money to save. Some may not have money to save after paying all that, but just to the extent that they are able, if not to save, at any rate to live within their income, they are making a considerable contribution to the war. If they sell their capital to pay their outgoings, thinking that it does not matter, they are doing a serious injury to the war effort, because not only are they not saving, but they are increasing the gap by the negative saving which comes from expenditure on current necessities out of capital.
When we come to what are called the middle income class, there it must be, I think, largely a matter of one individual against another. There are some individuals in that section of income range who have had their incomes very seriously diminished, quite apart from the effect of taxation, and when increased rates of taxation have fallen upon them as well it has become impossible for them to save. On the other hand, some members of that class may be retaining their full income, or even increasing it. They can meet their taxes, and they have been able to cut down their expenditure very considerably; therefore, they ought to be able to hand over substantial sums to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Then we come to the manual working class—those above the poverty line, whom I have already written out of the picture. Here again, there are great differences between one family and another. I would say of these, as of the poorest section, that to sacrifice the standard of life which makes for the full health and efficiency of themselves and their families would be a grave blunder, which would injure not only them but the country which they have to serve. If they took it from their children, again, they would be injuring the future of the country for which this war, above everything, is being conducted. But, on the


other hand, there may well be in certain families those who regard the extra income which they get not in the way that will be most beneficial to the State, and therefore, in that class, as well as in the others, this admonition to save all that is possible over and above what is really needed for efficient and healthy life is applicable.
That is my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove). It depends upon circumstances. I think that in every class of the community there are many people who do not save but who could and should save. It only remains to answer the question, What would be the addition to the savings totals if all those who could save did so on the scale that the most worthy are already doing? As far as I can see at the moment there would be something like double the savings which are being put aside at the present time, and that would be amply sufficient to make sure of non-inflation. I do not think that we ought to rest content until every individual who can save to his own advantage and that of the community comes into line with those who are so faithfully bearing the burden at the present time.
I think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has helped in this respect, and I want him to continue to help by keeping down the cost of living and preventing any inflationary tendencies from letting the cost of living up. As long as he can do that, and do it successfully, then the appeal to save can be made and should be made to every section of the community. It should be brought home to the people that, if they want to win the war, and if they want to win it most rapidly and want to protect those who are in a weaker financial position than themselves from suffering privation as a result of financing the war, they should spare no effort and consider no sacrifice not involving their own health and efficiency too great, to achieve these ends.

Mr. Graham White: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has brought us up to and beyond the fourth milestone of our financial year, and in his survey to-day he has been fortunate in that he has been able to recall, since he addressed the House on this subject in September, that there has been no substantial adverse circumstance develop in

our national finances. In fact, the position, has been, in the main, favourable and encouraging. If we look into the road ahead the green light is showing, but in the distance there is one red light beginning to gleam, and there are many matters to which we shall have to give very close attention. His statement to-day has been reassuring. The so-called gap—why it is always referred to like that I do not know, because it is a very genuine thing—when he last addressed us, seemed likely to be of the order of £400,000,000 greater, than the Budget estimate. To-day he tells us that it is likely to be of the order of £200,000,000. I hope that that may be correct.
The right hon. Gentleman devoted most of his remarks to the matter of saving, and I propose to make one or two observations in that direction myself. I would like, however, to refer to the new proposal that he has made for facilitating the collection of taxes. I think that that proposal is well conceived. It is, in the amounts involved, rather a technical matter than a matter of the greatest financial scope. If it facilitates—and I think it will— the even flow of revenue it will be a great convenience, but whether it will actually save any money to the State, I am not quite convinced. I thought that if these funds were accumulating in the bank they would be available to the State indirectly, but I do see the convenience of the suggested arrangement. I asked my right hon. Friend whether the security which is to be issued in relation to the taxation to be paid would be issued at a discount. He said that this might be of particular help to companies liable to Excess Profits Duty. Therefore, I presume that the security to be issued will be issued at a discount. If it were to receive direct interest payment that would in time become subject to Excess Profits Duty, it might be of no great help to the company. Otherwise I am not convinced of the advantage to the. company of this arrangement, although I regard it as one making for convenience and the easier control of finance.
I turn now to the vital matter of War Savings. Some influences coming into play now which may alter the general course of savings, and the rate, and the volume in which they will accrue to the State. Does my right hon, Friend


seek to foretell what effect the spread of the war in the East may have upon the course of economy in this country? It is a fairly safe prediction to say that it will not increase the amount of consumable goods in this country, and to that extent may help the War Savings Movement. On the other hand, the general tightening-up in the demands upon man-power and the calling up of large numbers of individuals throughout the country are going to have an effect upon War Savings. What that may be I find it very difficult to forecast. If individuals are withdrawn exclusively from the class who up to the present have not been doing their duty in saving, it will not make much difference. If, on the other hand, it falls upon those who are making the maximum effort in that connection, War Savings will not be very much stimulated. I am inclined to take the view that the time has come when, having had a review of the man-power resources of this country and having tightened up the machine and made it more effective, we ought to look into the financial aspect of affairs and see whether a review there might not be helpful in bringing about a change of emphasis which may be desirable to help the effort in the War Savings Campaign, which has already been so extraordinarily successful. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor, if I remember rightly, said that the amount of small savings in this country would shortly reach the £1,000,000,000 mark—

Sir K. Wood: It has passed that.

Mr. White: It has also passed that figure in Germany where there has been no savings movement and no expenditure of money on a great advertising campaign. I feel that we should now look at our War Savings Campaign effort and make up our minds whether or not in some directions the emphasis should not be changed, with, perhaps, even greater success to the effort. I am very doubtful about the effect of some of our War Savings Campaign methods. As I went through Piccadilly Circus to-day I saw from a bus, in an inverted pyramid, the letters "U.S.S.R.", "U.S.A.", "U.S.", and on the bottom the letter "U", and I wondered Whether there was any individual, of the thousands passing through there, whose patriotic duty was stimulated of whose purse-strings were loosened by

reading a display of that kind. Again, there is the slogan, "You can't lose if you lend." That perhaps may touch an answering cord in the minds of some individuals because it is contrary to all human experience. It suggests the possibility that State security is of such a character that it requires to be reinforced by assurances. It rather recalls the criticism of a young lady Who, speaking with great temerity of the Ten Commandments said, "They are not a constructive policy; they only put ideas into your head." I am by no means sure that a slogan of that kind does not put the idea into the mind of would-be investors that there is a certain amount of insecurity. Maybe the alliterative exhortations which bespatter our walls bring some return, but I wonder whether they do.
I think there are other aspects of the war effort which might well be advertised to bring a greater sense of responsibility, in relation to these matters, into the mind of the individual who reads them. I think the note in our War Savings Campaign henceforth should be this: The citizen of this country has had impressed upon him, as never before, that he is tremendously important for what he can do. The War Savings Department must say, "You are tremendously important to this country and to the needs of Russia, not only for what you can do but also for what you can do without." That is a slogan which I should suggest might be developed. Wherever we look, we see the need for decreased consumption. Whether it comes from the new threat in the Far East or from the needs of Russia, it is clearly the case that the citizens of this country are very important for what they can do without.
I would like if I may to draw attention for a moment or two to a very remarkable change that has been made quite recently in regard to savings in Germany. The German method of saving money has been the inverse one to that adopted in this country. They have not had a great war savings campaign with expensive advertising, and they have said that the German citizen knows his duty so clearly that he does not need to be hustled into it by methods of that kind. In fact, however, the Germans have arranged to stop expenditure by complete rationing, by price fixing and by wage stoppage over the whole field from the very out-


set. From their last figures it appears that their small savings groups have reached a total of £1,100,000,000. approximately the same amount as we have achieved in this country by efforts of a different kind. It is a remarkable thing that they should have done that in that way and should have carried on without such a drastic increase in taxation as we have had in this country. Although this scheme and these methods have been to carry Germany through two years of very costly war, they have within the last three months had to make special concessions and arrangements which seem to indicate apprehensions of something they were not quite so happy about. Now a scheme has been brought in whereby wage and salary earners can contribute a certain amount every month, for a period of not less than three months, which is free of taxation. It is estimated that by that means £600,000,000 per annum will be accumulated, in addition to the efforts already made, and that it will cost them something like £120,000,000 in loss of revenue.
I want to draw attention to the reason why this has been done. It is due to the rising discrepancy between the immense amount of unspendable income in the pockets of those in Germany and the decreasing amount of consumable goods. It is clear that the stage has been reached where, in spite of all control, there is great danger of that mass of spending money breaking through all obstacles and being thrown into speculation, black markets and practices of one kind or another, to the great danger of Germany's war finances. In passing, I would like to refer to the fact that this new inducement of saving is free of taxation, not only in capital amount which is saved but also in the interest. That is a matter of great consequence. It is open to several members in one family to open one of these iron savings accounts. As the interest is not taxable, there is great inducement to the married woman to take up work. I am not so sure that there ought not to be something like it to the great advantage of this country. Of course, the merging of the incomes of man and wife is an old complaint in this country, from which there is no escape except divorce. That is still a matter which we might well consider in order to

induce and encourage married women to take up work.
Is there any lesson for us in this, or is there not? Is there any danger in this country that we may, with increasing earnings and incomes, reach a point when there will be set in motion such a rise in costs and prices that we shall find ourselves suddenly in the midst of an inflation which will seriously disturb the whole course of our war finance? It may well be that these things are a mirage before my eyes and not before those of other people; if so, I shall be very pleased. I notice that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture has opportunely arrived in the Chamber to lend point to my argument, for my right hon. Friend has said that we must expect dearer food in this country. I notice that in many directions there are increasing demands for increased remuneration. Those demands are very important. I do not want to discuss them; I merely state that they exist. These great matters which will affect the whole financial policy of this country in the midst of this war are not determined by the Government, but are left to tribunals, outside bodies, which are set up for other purposes. It is not right that these matters, which might carry us, if the circumstances were such that they got out of control, into a state of financial uncertainty, with the possibilities of trouble and disaster, should be left to these bodies. If there is anything in the House of Commons on which we are unanimous, it is upon the dangers of inflation and the necessity of avoiding it. There is no set of people of which I know who are not in agreement about that. The question I want to ask is whether it is not about time that steps were taken to reach an agreement on what is necessary to prevent inflation. I ask hon. Members to direct their minds to that question, because although it may be that I am taking a pessimistic view-if so, I shall be glad to be told so-of the possibilities of the situation, it seems to me that there are tendencies on foot to which we should give very careful attention, not in any spirit of controversy, but with a desire to stop this process at the outset.
Our situation is better than anybody could have anticipated it would be when we were thrust into this great war. I agree that there are many who do their


utmost to help on the financial side, but there are others who, up to now, have not realised what is possible. It does not occur to many people that if they refrained from listening to one news bulletin in the course of the day, they would make a saving in their demands upon electricity supply. I think that now the slogan of Lord Kindersley and his colleagues should be, "You are important for what you can do; you are just as important for what you can do without." People should remember that they must make no demand upon public services of any kind—travel, heat, light, or whatever it may be—if they can avoid it; that they must not buy anything they can do without, that they must review the whole course of all their transactions, large and small, and make sure that they are not making a demand for something that is needed in Russia or somewhere else. I think that—rather than the alliterative eccentricities which bespatter our hoardings—should be the note which the War Savings Campaign should take.

Sir Adam Maitland: The hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. Graham White) referred, in complimentary terms, to the manner in which Germany has raised war savings from her workpeople. The hon. Member's observations reminded me of an opportunity I had, about six months before the outbreak of the war, of inspecting the wages books of a very large industrial concern in Germany. I found that, in accordance with the usual practice in Germany, the workpeople had been induced or coerced to accept many things, both in regard to wages and other matters, which would not have been accepted in this country. The hon. Member will be aware, I am sure, that long before the war there were many stoppages from wages in Germany that would not have been tolerated here.

Mr. White: And in Russia.

Sir A. Maitland: The hon. Member referred to Germany, and as I happen to have had an opportunity of seeing something of this matter in Germany before the war, I will confine my observations to Germany. The hon. Member's remarks also reminded me that in pre-war days the Germans accepted another thing which certainly would not have been considered. as a matter of practical politics in this

country. The policy of fixed wages for all workers in all industries was instituted in Germany long before the war. It was done by the central authority. The fixing of wages was a very important matter because it meant getting right down to the first basis of costs. Having fixed wages, the leaders of Germany found that, as time went on, prices of goods tended to increase, and it was impossible, with the wages that had been fixed, for the wage earners to buy the things they desired to buy. A second step was then taken, and quite consistently and sensibly, selling prices were fixed. It seems to me that in this country we have done things in the inverse order. We talk about the control of prices and have indeed introduced a certain degree of control, but there has certainly not been so far any very serious attempt to control wages. May I say in this connection that some of the most important steps, and some which have been most harmful, have unfortunately been instituted by Government Departments of one kind and another? I commend that to the notice of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
No Member would for one moment think of opposing this Vote of Credit which the Committee are asked to pass, but perhaps this is not an inopportune moment to emphasise once more how important it is, in giving extensions of credit for such huge sums, for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to see that money is wisely expended. In spite of the enormous demands which are being made upon all sections of the community, and in spite of the colossal financial burdens falling upon this country, there is one thing which is outstanding; I would ask those who at times are tempted to condemn our present economic and financial structure to dwell upon this point. Other countries which have experienced financial and industrial crises, and difficulties arising internally and externally, have had a run on the banks, and chaotic confusion has resulted. On the other hand, we have had our ups and downs, and our problems during the last 10 years, but no Member has had suggested to him the slightest shadow of doubt in regard to the stability of our banking institutions. That is a tribute to our financial and economic structure, however much we may criticise it. I do not, of course, suggest for one


moment that no improvements could be made to our existing system of finance and industry.
I think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and perhaps this is the only bouquet I shall give him—is to be congratulated upon the way in which the money has been raised to meet the cost of the war. It is a great tribute to the stability and solidarity of our British institutions, and to the common sense of our people, that in such a tremendous war, involving such astronomical figures, my right hon. Friend is able to come to the Committee and report that it is possible for him to continue to borrow money act such cheap rates. My hon. Friend the Member for East Birkenhead referred to wasteful expenditure. I believe that the greatest impetus which could be given to the War Savings Movement would be the conviction that the House of Commons is determined to stamp out and eradicate anything in the nature of wasteful expenditure. In this connection I wish to make a suggestion to my right hon. Friend. I do hot believe that Ministers, either during war or in peace, have sufficient time to devote to the question of expenditure—they are so busy with high policy and with other matters that it is impossible for them to get down to questions affecting the administration of expenditure. I suggest that in every Government Department someone should be specifically charged With the duty to examine details of administration and to see that expenditure incurred by the Department concerned is wisely and efficiently made. In the case of a small local authority, a county authority, and a national authority there is a definite and practicable limit to the amount of money which in any given period can be wisely spent. That is specially true during a war. Then there is an expansion of organisation, and people are brought in who have not the knowledge and experience—I am not criticising their willingness or their desire to help—to see that a Department's duties are performed in the most economical, efficient and effective way.
At a time when rationing is regarded with favour, and when we have had two and a half years' experience of war, I suggest that a review should be made of the amount of money which a Department Can spend with real efficiency and

with due regard to the needs of the nation. I know this is difficult, especially in Service Departments, when some new strategy may be in the offing which would upset calculations; but there are many other Departments which are not affected by strategy and the variations of war where such a scheme could be adopted. If this suggestion cannot be adopted in the case of the Fighting Services, I suggest that it might be applicable in the case of the other Departments which are also spending considerable sums of money. To see that expenditure is wisely administered, some departmental body, charged with the specific responsibility of administering the expenditure of the funds of that Department, should be set up. Hon. Members may suggest that we already have the Select Committee on National Expenditure, but that Committee is limited in its scope and is limited in the kind of work it can do. It is not an executive body, but in reporting to the House completes one of its main functions. The sort of body I am suggesting would be charged with the specific duty and would be capable of exercising some authority in regard to departmental expenditure. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be good enough to consider that suggestion.
None of us would wish to say anything to destroy confidence in our national financial arrangements, but I must point out that I cannot for one moment accept the suggestion that borrowing and taxation can be put in the same category. Borrowing is something the State undertakes to repay to the lender, be it soon or late. Taxation is imposed by the State with no hope of repayment to the taxpayer. There is some suggestion with regard to discount for taxes paid in advance. This is perhaps the first official recognition of the anxiety that is felt in regard to the practicability of collecting taxation at the very high existing rates. It is a warning to the right hon. Gentleman that he is getting to the limit in the practicality of raising and collecting taxation at the present high rates. It is further evidence that the never-ceasing need of greater vigilance in regard to the expenditure of the money is of vital importance

Dr. Russell Thomas: I should like to say a few words arising out of the Chancellor's reference to


National Savings. He was careful to explain that he was not merely referring to small savings but that there are considerable savings made, for instance, by insurance companies. He expressed himself on the whole—or that is the impression he gave me—as pretty satisfied that. National Savings were going on just as they should and that, as they gathered force, they would probably go a long way to fill up the gap that we all have in mind. But I am not so sure. I do not believe that National Savings are as great as is imagined when you take certain factors into consideration. Even before the National Savings Movement national savings were considerable. Have they risen at the rate that they should when we consider the general expansion of employment? This has increased enormously. Have National Savings gone up pro rata? Also wages are constantly rising and have increased enormously. Not only are there more people employed, but a great many are getting extra wages. Is the Chancellor extracting sufficient of these in National Savings? Are National Savings growing pro rata with the increased wages? I am not so sure about it.
There is also a lack of outlets for investment. Before the war people had considerable scope. There were building societies and that kind of thing, but I do not believe that building societies are taking people's money to-day to any extent. Is the Chancellor extracting the money that would have been invested in building societies and so on, for his own use? I very much doubt whether he is extracting as much as he should. I doubt very much whether people are making greater savings in the direction of insurance policies than before the war. I think they are probably less. People are not able to spend so much to-day on their food and clothes as they used to on account of rationing. Is the Chancellor getting in sufficient in that direction? He referred rightly to the fact of limitation of goods available, indeed regarding a limitation of goods and increased purchasing power as inevitable during a great war.
Although the right hon. Gentleman deplored the fact that people had too much purchasing power, there are increases of wages going on almost weekly. I stated in a supplementary

question the other day that the bodies which get these increased wages are those belonging to powerful interests, and they are able to get more of the limited quantity of goods available. But there are also large numbers of people who cannot save at all, who are on the existence line and no more. They have no one whatever to look after their interests and they cannot come in and get hold of more of these very limited goods. It is high time that these matters were considered with greater severity and sternness. The Government has to consider whether some sort of wage policy could not be hammered out which would help to stabilise the conditions we are going through. It would present enormous difficulties, but I think it should be borne in mind. These are just points that occurred to me while the Chancellor was speaking. I am sure we all wish him well in the great difficulties that lie ahead.

Mr. Loftus: I congratulate the Chancellor on the new proposals by which people will be enabled to buy securities wherewith later on to pay their taxes. I think it will be an immense convenience, and I look forward to studying the details with great interest. I do not know whether these securities will bear a very small rate of interest or will be issued at a discount. If either of these things was to happen, it would, of course, amount to giving a slight discount for payment of taxes in advance. I take it that the rate would vary from month to month as the time for paying the tax got nearer. We have listened in a remarkably thin House to some very interesting speeches, which I should like to comment upon. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) pointed out that examples of waste of Government money have a deterrent effect on the whole Savings Movement. I was reading in a local paper the other day about a rural district council which with great enthusiasm was working up a warship week, and several members pointed out really bad cases of Government extravagance in the near neighbourhood which might have a great effect on the willingness of people to subscribe as they hoped.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. Graham White), speaking for the Liberal party, said that if we are to avoid inflation he felt it would be necessary to have a wages and prices


policy. I think that Members in all parts of the Committee who have thought over the problem of inflation are in general agreement that it is desirable if it can be done to have a policy which would more or less stabilise wages and prices. The difficulty has been to know how to do it. I have thought a great deal about it and that has been the difficulty which I have had to face. I am glad to say that the difficulty is solved for me by the example given to us by the Government of the Dominion of Canada. I do not know whether hon. Members know what has been done in Canada.

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams): This Debate does not include anything that has been done in Canada.

Mr. Loftus: Can the Debate include the question which has been referred to by nearly every speaker—the danger of inflation?

The Temporary Chairman: I am not quite sure what the hon. Member means.

Dr. Peters: We have had references to what has been done in Germany. Cannot we have references to what has been done in Canada?

The Temporary Chairman: Only as an example, but we cannot go into anything that has to do with Canadian policy.

Mr. Loftus: I submit that when another country, whether a Dominion or not, has passed legislation which would give an indication of the way to solve a problem which we are facing, I might be allowed to mention it.

The Temporary Chairman: Only if the hon. Gentleman mentions it as a short illustration and not as involving a separate Debate.

Mr. Loftus: It is not my intention to begin a separate Debate. I was going to ask my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to issue a White Paper showing what has been done so that hon. Members could see in detail the legislation that has been passed. The general principle, which I advocate to-day, is to fix prices at a certain level as they were, say, in the first week in November. The prices of all goods and services have to remain at that level. Then wages are stabilised subject to the condition that if there is a rise in

the cost of living every employer has to pay 25 cents a week extra for every one point rise. This alteration takes place every three months. I commend that to my hon. Friend because I feel that we could work on those lines in this country and stabilise the prices of goods and services so that no one in any shop could sell at a greater price than, say, in the first week of November, and so that the charges of rents, railways, water and similar companies could not be more than in November, subject, however, to an appeal to a Government tribunal which could allow an exceptional increase in charges. I appeal to my right hon. Friend to issue a White Paper showing what the Canadian Government have done.
My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham congratulated my right hon. Friend on raising these vast amounts of money at a low rate of interest. I cannot support those congratulations with quite as much enthusiasm because I realise that the Treasury has complete control over the rates of interest to-day, that a considerable proportion of the money raised is created by the banking system at a cost not exceeding 1 per cent., and that, therefore, when we pay 2½ per cent. on that money we are paying far too much. Looking at this huge amount of £1,000,000,000, I again, for the fourth or fifth time, urge my right hon. Friend to follow the warning and advice given him by the "Economist" two or three years ago that for all these moneys created to fill the gap at a cost of about 1 per cent. the State should pay not more than 1 per cent. We are passing a vote of credit for £1,000,000,000. The Chancellor has told us that the total war expenditure is £8,100,000,000. Let us look ahead. The total National Debt left after the last war was in the nature of £7,000,000,000. We all know the immense burden that that was on the nation and how it hindered desirable national expenditure in many ways. The money was raised at an average of 5 per cent. It was a crushing burden on the nation. We have already spent £8,100,000,000—not all, of course, from loans, but partly from taxation. Surely it is not pessimistic to suggest that we may end this war with an additional National Debt of probably well over £10,000,000,000 and possibly £14,000,000,000 at an average rate of 2½ to 3 per cent. Then the burden of this


war will be the same as the terrible burden of 5 per cent. on £7,000,000,000 after the last war. I must confess that I view with apprehension this colossal piling up of debt. I agree that it is necessary under the orthodox financial system. Whether that system is necessary, whether it can continue under the strain of the war, is another question. After all, we are passing a vote of credit for £1,000,000,000.
What is credit? Credit is the capacity of an individual, or a group of individuals, or a nation to supply goods and services, and that capacity to supply is financed by the creation of monetary means. Therefore, this £1,000,000,000 is a draft, as it were, on the national capacity to supply goods and services for war use, and in due course that national credit will be converted into the monetary means to produce the goods—by the various methods of taxation, war savings, and filling the gap by created money. It is almost a tragic paradox that, drawing as we are on our national credit, the nation should not create its own national credit practically without cost, and I feel that if we go on spending these vast and yet vaster sums we shall have so to adapt our technique as to avoid piling up this colossal burden of debt at comparatively high rates of interest.
I am not going to deal with the actual technique by which this £1,000,000,000 will be converted into purchasing power for the Government. I know there are great difficulties in modifying the technique, because the machinery by which the technique is worked consists of the Bank of England working in co-operation with the Treasury. My right hon. Friend, when we ask him about the Bank of England, always informs us that it is a private company, and turns aside questions in that way, but in actual fact we know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England are really in partnership, though we are never quite certain which of them is the senior partner. We hope that he will persuade the various authorities, the Treasury, the Governor of the Bank and others, to consider with an unprejudiced mind a new technique for reducing this appalling burden of debt interest. I make no attack on the integrity of those who direct the Bank of England and the Treasury, above all not on the Governor

of the Bank of England, but he is a fanatical adherent of the old orthodox system. He is the stem undeviating Calvin of the dogma of deflation, prepared to condemn the great majority of mankind to the hell of economic depression for the sake of the small body of the elect, the rentiers and the moneylenders. I feel that we must break down all those ideas of the past, as we are facing to-day conditions which the men who created the old financial system of the last century could not possibly imagine and could not possibly face to-day, and which we cannot face in the future if we adhere rigidly to an outworn financial method.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I have not long in which to speak, and I would summarise my ideas in two or three short questions to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who is to reply to the Debate. I will say no more about the need for economy, because that has been sufficiently dealt with. Although, as has been observed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not say anything about it in his speech I think my right hon. and gallant Friend will appreciate that the country attaches great importance to this question and realise how much the prevalent waste is undermining the War Savings movement. If my right hon. and gallant Friend will deal with that I think he will be satisfying a demand which is heard throughout the country. Secondly, I think he must deal with the problem of wages and prices. I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Loftus) that any one period should be fixed, and prices and wages determined at that point. There is in to-day's "Times" an interesting letter dealing with farm servants. It is written by a farmer who points out the disparity between the wages of farm servants even to-day and those of road men and other people working in the same neighbourhoods. He says, referring to farm workers:
There are men in this neighbourhood who until now have been working to the old 48s. maximum. They would be worth anything they like to ask if they thought they could work out of farming, driving a lorry or doing mechanical work.
Therefore, on the question of wages, in addition to preventing a rise in costs we have got somehow to readjust the ill balance which is now appearing. Thirdly, I invite my right hon. and gallant Friend


to say something about War Savings Certificates. I think the whole country had rather looked forward to a statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the effect that the limit of 500 certificates per holder would be extended. The Chancellor did mention the desirability of in-creasing savings on the part of wage earners and one way by which a great increase could be brought about would be by extending that limit.
This may not be the occasion for my right hon. and gallant Friend to deal with the fourth point which I make, but he knows that throughout the country there is the strongest possible objection, based upon the strongest case, to the present system of levying the Excess Profits Tax. Something must be done about that, and it would be interesting to hear that the Treasury are considering the matter. My last point refers to the banks. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) paid a well deserved tribute to the banks, and my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Loftus) has just spoken of the great increase in the National Debt. The Chancellor of the Exchequer must know that in the City to-day there are many people, including some of the wisest heads in the City, who believe that we ought to revert to the system of a Sinking Fund, even in the middle of war and even with the great increase in expenditure. It is the view of the wisest people in the City that a Sinking Fund ought to be re-established. If that were done it would have a considerable psychological effect, and would give a certain feeling of confidence. I have promised not to speak longer, and I invite my right hon. and gallant Friend to deal with the points I have made.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Crookshank): I am not intending to speak long, and if I were to answer all the points put by the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart), each one of which would provide adequate material for a long speech, I am afraid we should not get on with the other business on which he also wants to speak. I should like to thank the hon. Members who have spoken for their reception of this Vote of Credit, and more particularly for the anticipatory welcome which they have given to the new certificates to which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made

reference. I have not much to add to what he has already said, but I will comment on one or two of the remarks which have been made in the Debate. When these Vote of Credit papers come along I always feel a paternal interest in them, because they are over my signature. That piece of caligraphy is now attached to Votes of Credit for £7,800,000,000 which have been presented in ray name in this House. I think that the right hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) must have been extremely pleased that the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove) should have interrupted him, because it enabled him to give us a most interesting analysis of what he considers the way in which savings are coming in. On reflection, I am not at all sure that most of us would not agree with what he said. It was a very brilliant, and, I think, it must have been an impromptu, description of what is going on.
Perhaps a little more emphasis might be put, in the savings talk that goes on, upon the non-spending aspect of it, because that is fundamentally the most important. I hope that hon. Gentlemen who are helping the various campaigns will make a special point of that aspect in their speeches, and will try to encourage people to refrain from spending the money which is in their pockets. It may truly be said that the very rich find it difficult to do much direct saving in these days, and that some are fortunate if they can meet their tax obligations without having to liquidate any of their capital. The hon. Gentleman suggested that the campaign as a whole would be helped very much if the limitation of 500 on holdings of National Savings Certificates were removed. My right hon. Friend answered a Question on that point in the House recently and stated that he had no evidence of any real necessity for such a step. Such analyses as can be made of the figures show that the number of people who actually hold 500 certificates is not very great. War Savings Certificates are intended largely for the small saver among the poorer sections of the community, although it is true that the Surtax payer can take out 500 of these certificates, which happen to be exceedingly profitable from the point of view of interest, compared with other securities which are available. However, the primary object of the certificates is to encourage small savings, and there is no evidence as yet of


appreciable holdings of as many as 500 certificates by individuals. There is no reason why every member of a family in the section of the community for which these certificates are intended should not have certificates, and the average family might hold quite a lot of them in that way.
The hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. G. White)—he is not here at the moment—referred to the national expenditure. I would remind him, in case he reads what I say, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not specifically say in his speech that expenditure being up by £200,000,000 over his Budget estimate necessarily meant that the gap would be increased by that amount. My right hon. Friend gave as his reason the fact that the size of the gap depends not only upon expenditure but also upon revenue and other factors. No doubt Lord Kindersley and the organisation which he directs will take note of the criticisms made by the hon. Member about War Savings posters, but as the hon. Gentleman himself has noticed the posters of which he complained, it is evident that those posters have had some effect. If posters are noticed, I imagine that they have already achieved one object for which they are put up.
The hon. Member said something, which was countered by the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland), about what was going on in Germany in regard to methods of saving. I say instinctively that I wonder whether what one gets out of Germany to-day in any direction has any relation to the facts. Probably even in the field of savings that is true. After all, the greatest swindle ever perpetrated on a nation was a scheme of saving, invented by the Germans—the buying by instalments of the people's car. It may be that there are other snags of that kind about schemes which are now going on, and I think I should treat them with some reserve.
My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham also said that my right hon. Friend should be very careful to see that Departmental control was instituted over expenditure within the Departments. He suggested, as I understood it, the appointment inside the Departments of someone, not being the permanent head of the Department, to control such expenditure and to see that it was wisely

carried out. It is of vital importance to make sure that these vast sums of money are wisely spent, and it is the duty of all of us to ensure that the maximum economy is achieved, but we are always fortified in that regard by the reports of the Select Committee of this House, which makes such valuable directions to that end. My hon. Friend overlooked the fact that it is already the function of a special financial officer in the Departments to examine what my hon. Friend has in mind. The business of these officers is to criticise proposals for new expenditure and to watch expenditure made on behalf of the heads of the Departments. My hon. Friend can rest assured that we shall try our very best to see that expenditure is kept under constant review.
Another thing he said was in relation to what my right hon. Friend said about tax collection. My hon. Friend thought that doubts were being expressed by my right hon. Friend as to the practicability of collecting taxes at the present high rate, but I must repudiate that interpretation. There are no doubts of the practicability of collecting taxes. What my right hon. Friend has in mind is to devise some way of making it more convenient for the taxes to be paid. The prudent man is supposed to be he who puts aside week by week and month by month during the year something towards what he knows he will have to pay next year or, in the case of the Surtax payer, the year after; but such persons are all too few. Usually taxpayers are somewhat hard pressed when the demands come in and they see exactly what they have to pay. My right hon. Friend has come to the conclusion that some inducement in the way of a certificate which could be bought, and which would have a certain apparent value later on, might be helpful to taxpayers.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: May I ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman whether we are to have the particulars of the scheme before the House rises for the Recess, or before the end of the year?

Captain Crookshank: I do not think they will be forthcoming before the end of the year. On the other matters raised, my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Loftus) as usual told us that we were too orthodox, but on the whole we have


not done too badly out of our orthodoxy in our war finance so far. We have raised these vast sums, we have collected large sums in taxation, and I am afraid the fact remains that, from the very glib way in which we are now used to talk of millions, tens of millions and hundreds of millions—and in these Votes, thousands of millions—very few people in this country realise how big these sums are. I am always trying to find some way in which I can put it to people. One very vivid form is this: If we cast our minds back over the Great War, the Napoleonic wars, Marlborough's wars, the Elizabethan wars, the Wars of the Roses, the Crusades, if in fact we take a review of military history back to the Conquest and beyond to Julius Ceasar, the Punic wars and the Persian wars, we have covered the whole field of recorded European warfare, and even then we have to skip back to the reputed date of King Solomon, somewhere about 700 B.C., before reaching a stage in human history from which we can count 1,000,000 days up to the present. If you like to imagine that King Solomon were still alive, and that every day of his life he had spent £1 providing sweets for some of his ladies, he still would not have spent £1,000,000, even though he had spent a pound a day from the time of his birth. That is the meaning of £1,000,000. Here we are talking about £1,000,000,000, and it is the fourth time this year that we have asked for that sum. So we really are dealing with a financial problem of the greatest magnitude. With the present demeanour of the people, the way in which they are paying their taxes and the enthusiasm they have shown in refraining from spending their higher incomes and are investing them in one form or another of Government security, we have every hope that in the future we shall surmount our difficulties as we have been able to up to now, and do the best we can on the financial front towards winning the war.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,000,000,000, be granted to His Majesty, towards defraying the expenses which may be incurred during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1942, for general Navy, Army and Air Services arid for the Ministry of Supply in so far as specific provision is not made

therefor by Parliament, for securing the public safety, the defence of the realm, the maintenance of public order and the efficient prosecution of the war, for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community and generally for all expenses, beyond those provided for in the ordinary Grants of Parliament, arising out of the existence of a state of war.

Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day; Committee to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

WAYS AND MEANS.

Considered in Committee.

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

Resolved,
That towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1942, the sum of £1,000,000,000 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."—[Captain Crookshank.]

Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day; Committee to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
There are few immediate and practical measures in public health which I could commend to the House with better heart and greater enthusiasm than this little Measure which is now before the House. I have long been interested in the issue of school feeding for children, and my first recollectable conference on the subject was at our school board many years ago. I can recollect the efforts made by the great Conservative Minister for Education, Sir John Gorst, and my friend Mr. Martin Haddow, of Glasgow, in endeavouring to arouse public opinion as to the waste and folly of attempting to teach children who, while they were sitting on the school benches, were under-nourished. Then in 1930 I and some others obtained a grant from the Empire Marketing Board of £5,000, and we received also £2,000 from the Miners' Distress Fund in Scotland. We added those two sums together


and started a milk feeding experiment in Lanarkshire, with 20,000 school children. As a result of that experiment it was proved beyond the shadow of doubt that a regular course of milk was beneficial to the health of the school children in every way. In the Lanarkshire experiment boys of 11 years of age, after receiving a milk ration during four months, more than doubled the weight increase as compared with boys who got no milk. At the same time girls of the same age also more than doubled their weight increase as compared with those who got no milk. In one case the increase of weight was 12 0zs. and the other 24 0zs. That was the foundations of the milk-in-schools scheme under which to-day children get one-third of a pint of milk a day and, if they are necessitous, get it free. In October, 1931, the last date for which I have figures, 448,000 children in Scotland were getting milk in schools. That meant 59 per cent. of the total number of children on the school rolls. We have not hitherto been able to operate the milk scheme in areas not covered by the Milk Marketing Board, such as the Western Isles, but these are now to be included.
The Government are exceedingly anxious to make a big new advance in nutrition. I believe that the science of nutrition will do for public health what sanitation did for it in the last half-century. We believe that school feeding is highly desirable for many other reasons. First, there are many instances of children, especially in the winter-time, making a journey to and from their homes for a midday meal. Perhaps they get wet, they sit in their wet clothes all the afternoon, and that is bad for them, as it is favourable to the production of respiratory diseases. Secondly, we have now very many instances in which mothers are out at war work and are unable to cook for children who go to school. Thirdly, the cost of school feeding, done on a collective basis, is very low; and it will conserve foodstuffs. In Glasgow, for example, they get a substantial two-course meal for 4½d.; in Edinburgh a two-course meal is supplied for 4d., in Dundee for 4d., and in Aberdeen for 3d. The results of the experiment in Aberdeen have been indeed remarkable. The teachers there are able to detect from their appearance the children who are having their midday school meal as healthier and brighter in appearance in every way.
If I might utter a little word of warning, it is this: that we do not want to begin a school feeding system on an extravagant high-charge basis. Some places are charging 5d. for a two-course meal. We do not want school authorities to make profits out of these school feeding arrangements and, from those profits, begin a system of subsidising sports funds for the schools. That has not been unknown. We are anxious that this nutrition experiment shall be a nutrition experiment, that it will be a definite advance in human well-being. With the Minister of Food helping in every possible way, and the Scottish Education Department prepared to do anything and everything in its power to ' develop the school meals system, I hope that before long we shall be able to report that 20 per cent. of the children attending our schools have a hot midday meal. I go further, and I suggest that we ought to be doing everything we can to encourage the teaching of cookery in our schools. It is more necessary than ever that we should do so, and especially in the last two years of the child's school life. [Interruption.] We hope to reach the highest possible standard, the best possible nutritional standard, at the lowest possible price, for the maximum number of children.
The London County Council had a remarkable experiment with what is called the Oslo meal. They tried it for three months, and the percentage of increase in height which boys who took the Oslo meal showed over boys who did not get the Oslo meal in that period was no less than 71 per cent., and in weight, 82 per cent. The girls who took the Oslo meal increased in height over their friends who did not take the Oslo meal 109 per cent., and in weight 40 per cent. The Oslo meal system, where we have tried it in Scotland, has not commended itself entirely to the school child. He regards a vegetarian diet of that kind as not very appetising. In Aberdeen, for example, our experience has been that children did not willingly take the Oslo meal, and in any case the Oslo meal must be abandoned at the moment, as we have not the necessary materials to provide it. But all those things are being watched, they are all being organised, and I do hope, I believe, that as a result of this experiment of school feeding on a massed scale we shall be able to make


a tremendous improvement in the health and well-being of our child population.
I have said that we aim at 20 per cent. That is a big figure for some counties. Op the other hand, it is what Ayrshire has already done; it is what Stirlingshire is almost doing; and the increases which are taking place in some other counties are getting an increased momentum week by week and month by month. To facilitate the rapid expansion of the school meal service, we have, as from 1st October last, increased the rate of grant to local authorities by 10 per cent., with a proviso that the grant shall not exceed 95 per cent. of the total expenditure, nor fall below 70 per cent.—the lowest percentage grant in any area. In addition to that, there will be the rural areas, where it will be difficult to organise a cooked meal service, authority has been given by the Ministry of Food for the supply of certain rationed foods for school children in those areas, and an improved scale of allowances for children in those areas has been announced.
Why is this Bill necessary? The aim of the Government is to prevent malnutrition, instead of trying to remedy it after unmistakable symptoms have appeared. We desire that where school meals are provided, they shall be available for all school children, whether the parents can afford to pay or not. Education authorities in Scotland, it is true, have full power under the Act of 1908 to provide meals for children whose parents can afford to pay, but they are not permitted to supply food to necessitous children unless it is shown that the individual child is, by reason of lack of food unable to take full advantage of the education provided. The law therefore, in our view, must be amended if the Government's policy is to be carried out. As for standards of what is malnutrition, no one knows how you can have such standards. In the Department of Health Report for 1938, Members will find, on page 86, figures for three counties contiguous to one another, where the percentage of children reported as under average varies from, in the case of one county 19 per cent., to nought per cent. in the next county, and 1 per cent. in the next. Obviously, standards of malnutrition must vary very considerably. We are exceedingly anxious to have local

authorities given power to feed all children, whether they are necessitous, whether they are under-nourished, or not. The question of whether payments can be recovered from the parents is one for the education authority afterwards.
There is another respect in which the law requires amendment. Even when the child is shown to be in need of food, the education authority is required to go through an elaborate procedure before it can supply meals, except as a temporary expedient. The authority must summon either or both of the parents to appear before it, to give an explanation of the child's condition. If the explanation is not forthcoming, or if it is not satisfactory, and the authority finds that the child's condition is due to neglect, it is required to send a copy of its findings to the parents and a. copy to the Procurator-Fiscal with a view to prosecution. If the authority, or, in the event of a prosecution, the sheriff, is satisfied that the parent is not able, by reason of poverty or of ill-health, to supply the child with sufficient or proper food, the authority has next to be satisfied that the necessities cannot be provided by voluntary agencies. Not until the authority is satisfied on that score can it provide free meals to a necessitous child. Obviously, that sort of procedure cannot be tolerated at this time. By Section 6 of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908, authorities are "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd." They render themselves liable to surcharges if they feed children gratuitously without going through this alarming catalogue of difficulties. There is one case of a county in which children were given free meals, a ratepayer took exception to the expenditure, and the authority was found liable to a surcharge of no less than £69,000.

Mr. McKinlay (Dumbartonshire): Was that ratepayer a J. P.?

Mr. Johnston: I do not know. All I know is that the surcharge was not imposed. It is obvious, however, that changes in the law must be made if the policy of the Government is to be proceeded with. Under Sub-section (1) of Clause 1 of the Bill, it is provided that an education authority may purchase and provide food for all children attending school in its area, both on days when the school meets and on other days. Subsection (2) says that, where a child is


unable to take full advantage of the education provided the authority shall make such provision in the way of feeding as it may determine. This makes it obligatory where the authority finds a child undernourished. All the difficult procedure to which I have referred is abandoned. The third Sub-section empowers the local authority to recover such portion of the expense as it may deem fit. I ought to say that in no case will the costs which may be recovered include the costs of equipment. People may be charged only for food. Clause 2 repeals the provision of the Act of 1914, which empowered authorities to feed children on Sundays and Saturdays and holidays. That Act is repealed because Sub-section (1) of Clause 1 of this Bill authorises authorities to provide food both on days when the school meets and on other days.
Clause 3 deals with a point raised by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) in a recent Debate. Under the present law, local authorities can feed a necessitous child, an under-nourished child, until the age of five. But in some cases there is a gap between the child reaching the age of five and the date of the child entering school. The purpose of Clause 3, Sub-section (1, a) is to bridge this gap, and to empower local and education authorities to continue without intermission feeding arrangements for the under-nourished child. Paragraph (b) secures that deaf children, blind children, and defective children of any kind who are educated by special provision whether in schools or at home, can come in for the benefit of these full arrangements.
I have covered the Bill Clause by Clause, and I am sure that it will be welcomed by local authorities all over the country, and I am equally certain that it will be welcomed by the House and that it will be a tremendous help and benefit to the rising generation of Scotland.

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: On rising to address the House for the first time, I trust that I may enjoy that kindly indulgence which is usually bestowed upon a new Member on an occasion of this nature. I have noticed in recent months that the tone of a number of speeches of Private Members, including New Members, has been somewhat critical of the Government and that the Government have from time to time been charged with a variety of

alleged sins of commission and omission. I am, therefore, very glad that on this occasion I am able to run counter to that tendency and offer my sincere congratulations to the Government and to their advisers of the Scottish Education Department on the production of a small but useful Measure of social reform. Social reform is one of the most important subjects which animate the mind of those Members who sit on these benches and who are disciples of that great Victorian statesman, Benjamin Disraeli. No doubt some of the hon. Members present to-day will recall that, in one of his most famous public speeches, delivered at the Crystal Palace in 1872, Disraeli laid down as one of the principles of our national policy that we should aim at the elevation of the condition of the people. I suggest that this Measure, though admittedly it is a comparatively small one, is following in the true Disraelian tradition in that it will bring relief and assistance to many of our less fortunate fellow citizens and will enable their children to reap fuller benefit from our educational system.
As the Secretary of State has pointed out, the Bill is a short and simple one, and I should like to congratulate the Government upon the clarity of the language in which it is written, as so often Parliamentary Bills are couched in language which is almost incomprehensible to a layman. Furthermore, as the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State has remarked, the Measure before us to-day is pleasantly free from reservations and restrictions, and it does in fact give to the local authorities full power to use their own intitiative without the hampering influence of red tape or undue control from the centre. I hope and believe that that trust will not be abused and that, while local authorities will carry out the terms of the Bill to the fullest possible extent, nevertheless, they will at the same time exercise a wise discretion in regard to the free disbursement of food and clothing in order to prevent the possible growth of any malpractices. As the Secretary of State also pointed out, Section 6 of the 1908 Act, which this Bill will supersede, is out of date and cumbersome, in that it was necessary in individual cases to prove malnutrition before the local authority could arrange for the long-term feeding of the children concerned, and in fact the more enlightened


local authorities have long since adopted the Nelsonian tactics of turning the blind eye to the existing Measure and have adopted procedures of their own. To that extent, then, the new Bill really regularises an irregular practice in operation in many parts of Scotland. I hope that once this Bill becomes law the Scottish Education Department, by the use of diplomatic pressure, will see to it that the local authorities in those areas where the old practice is still in use will come into line as rapidly as possible. I stress that point at this moment because in the midst of a great war and furthermore, with the full brunt of winter coming upon us, it is of the greatest possible importance that necessitous children should be clad as warmly as possible and should receive food and milk in adequate quantities.
Turning to the new provisions incorporated in this Measure, I comment on the fact that children of five who are not enrolled at schools are now to come under the education authority, and I welcome that proposal, which fills a gap in the existing procedure. I also welcome the proposal that meals should be supplied to necessitous children on non-school days. Here, again, I am glad to say that that provision has already been anticipated in a number of areas, including that of the Edinburgh Education Committee.
There are two questions which I would like to put to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State, and perhaps he or the Under-Secretary of State, in the reply to the Debate, might comment upon them. The first is: Under this Bill will it be competent for a local authority to provide clothes or food for children who are attending nursery schools, whether those nursery schools are maintained by the local authority or run by private bodies? My second point is this: Supposing, unfortunately, through fire or damage caused by enemy action, the kitchen premises of some private school, such, as, for example, a large merchant company school in Edinburgh, be put out of action, will it be competent for the local authority to provide meals for the children attending that private school? I shall be glad if perhaps the hon. Gentleman will comment on that in his reply to the Debate.
As a former member of the Edinburgh Education Committee, I should like to extend a very hearty welcome to this Measure. We in Scotland, and especially in my native city of Edinburgh, are proud of our traditions in the educational sphere, and it will be much appreciated in Edinburgh and in Scotland generally that, despite the distractions of the times caused by the war, Parliament has still found time to pass into law this very useful little Measure to further the cause of Scottish education.

Mr. Mathers: It is with peculiar pleasure that I follow the hon. and gallant Member for West Edinburgh (Lieut.-Commander Hutchison) on the first occasion on which he has addressed this House and congratulate him, as I am sure I may, upon the facility with which he went through that ordeal. He chose a sympathetic audience in choosing a Scottish Debate in which to make his maiden speech. In some respects that perhaps was to some extent more an embarrassment to him than an assistance, but he came through the ordeal very happily indeed. I congratulate him all the more because he follows in the succession of Members for West Edinburgh. I had the honour to represent—or, as I have often said, "misrepresent"—West Edinburgh, because I was a minority Member between 1929 and 1931. The hon. and gallant Member is in a happier position than that; he represents what still is, unfortunately, if I may use that word on this occasion, the majority opinion in that Division. We hope to see him participating in our Debates on numerous occasions in the future.
With regard to this Bill, I am sure my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State realises that in bringing in a Measure of this kind he is doing something that will receive whole-hearted approval from this House. I know I can assure him that we shall do our best to assist the rapid passage of this Bill into law. It may be asked why, if this Measure is so very-desirable, it was not given effect to many years ago. My right hon. Friend, in making his references to the law as it stands at present, had to go back to 1908, to the Education (Scotland) Act of that year. He was justified in referring to the provisions of that Act, in respect of the feeding of school children as "absurd provisions." I am glad to think that at


long last we are getting rid of these absurd provisions. It is part of what we could expect from my right hon. Friend and from my hon. Friend the Joint Undersecretary, whose life-long interest in educational matters is something of which we in Scotland are very proud and something which must be of very great advantage and help in the Scottish Office. My right hon. Friend went back even beyond 1908 and referred to his own efforts in that particular sphere. While he may regret that he has to go back so many years, I am sure we all recognise in him one who has during that time continuously urged progress along the lines that this Bill takes.
He gave us some arguments in favour of passing this Bill into law with the least possible delay and told us of the experiment that had been carried out, notably the Lanarkshire milk feeding experiment, in 1930, for which he was responsible. We recognise all these things and are grateful for the line he took when he had the opportunity. This Measure shows itself to be in some degree permissive, but the arrangements which have been made for meeting the cost of these facilities up to a 95 per cent. grant will be an inducement even to the most backward local authority to press on with giving effect to the Bill when it becomes an Act of Parliament. I do not think my right hon. Friend could be expected to go further than that. Our desire will be to urge upon local authorities that they should take advantage of this Measure. It is our wish that my right hon. Friend himself will urge local authorities to take the fullest possible advantage of this Bill when it becomes law. He has shown us that there is no intention here to involve local authorities or anyone else in high costs. He has deprecated the idea of making any profit out of this service, however admirable may be the objects which would be served by making profits.
We welcome this Bill very heartily; we hope it will carry out the intentions of its author. We are glad that it is given to us to deal with a Measure of this kind at the present time. I would point out to my right hon. Friend that in his speech the war was relegated to a very small position. This Measure, which is of so much value to the community, is fashioned on sound lines, and I am sure it is our desire simply to thank my right

hon. Friend for giving us the opportunity of passing such a Bill into law and to assure him that we will do our best to help see that its provisions are carried out to the fullest possible extent once it becomes possible for local authorities to take advantage of them.

Mr. Maxton: I want to associate myself with the appreciations that have been expressed about this Measure and also to add my congratulations to the hon. and gallant Member for West Edinburgh (Lieut.-Commander Hutchison) on his maiden speech. I congratulate him not merely on the form and content of that speech but on the fact that when he could have waited some months in this House, preserving silence, watching the antics of all the rest of us and allowing great opportunities to pass by, when he could have spoken on international affairs and world-shaking events, he chose to speak on a matter which, I imagine, in the long run may be much more important than any other of the things in which he has not participated. I congratulate him on his choice of occasion to break silence, and I hope he will be heard more frequently in the Debates of the House of Commons, as is right and proper a Scottish Member should he heard here, even though he comes only from Edinburgh.
As I was listening to the speeches which have been made, I thought to myself how terrible it was that some of us have had to wait 40 years for this Measure. There is an old gentleman still living in Glasgow, Mr. William Martin Haddow, whom the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Member for Springburn (Mrs. Hardie) know very well, who will be very pleased at this happening to-day. I think he may take some share of the credit for having pioneered this idea and worked on it when it was met with great hostility and antagonism. I cannot understand why this self-evident and important aspect of education has been so long neglected in Scotland, which always prides itself on being a great country of education. While the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite was speaking, I thought it was surprising that during all these years we have always felt it was necessary to see that our Navy was fed. It was recognised that the Navy's job could not be done by people who were starved. Yet, at a more formative period


in life, schoolchildren who, as adults, would go into every phase of life, were completely neglected in the matter of nutrition. I can remember that when I was an assistant teacher in an elementary school in a slum quarter of my own Division, my lords of the Scottish Education Department, in their wisdom, brought forward a new scheme of physical training. It was to be operated very energetically and earnestly by all the teachers. Up to that time, the physical training in schools had usually been done by some ex-Army sergeant-major who walked in once a week or once a month and made the youngsters form fours, and so on.
Then the great new scientific system of physical training, based on Swedish principles, was made compulsory in the schools of Scotland, and all the teachers in elementary schools had to acquaint themselves with those methods so as to be able to take their own classes and put the children through their paces. In the school in which I was teaching in the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow, I had a class of 60 boys and girls of about 11 years of age. I took them down to the drill hall of the school, and when they had to take the erect posture—which I had great difficulty in taking myself— required in the Swedish exercises before beginning, 36 out of 60 youngsters could not bring both heels and knees together because of rickety malformations. Even at that time it was known that rickets was a disease of malnutrition, and yet no attempt was made to attack this problem in a concerted, organised way as a matter of serious public importance. Throughout the East End and the poor quarter of Glasgow there is still a very large proportion of adults who have malformation of the legs.
I do not want to delay the passage of the Measure in any way—and the right hon. Gentleman may have explained this point before I came into the Chamber, as I was two or three minutes late—but I do not see in the Bill any provision for bringing pressure to bear on a recalcitrant authority which says, "We are not going to bother our heads about this." There are some county authorities in Scotland who take their responsibilities very lightly. I have not any doubt that in the four big cities and in the big industrial counties the authorities will jump

at the opportunity to put their educational system in this respect on a sound basis, but there are other authorities of which we know that will look at costs, at one thing and another, and at the trouble and bother, and who will require to be pushed and driven into doing this job properly. I do not see anything in the Measure that gives the Secretary of State in the ultimate the power to do here what he has the power to do in other branches of education—to compel an authority that is not doing its job to come up to the necessary standards. I do not find anything in the Bill which seems to me to give the Secretary of State power to compel in this respect, and I am very dubious about moral persuasion having an influence on the type of authority of which I am thinking.
There are one or two other little points that I want to make. The Minister referred to the cheap rates at which some of the cities are already doing this work, and he mentioned 3d., 4d. and 5d. I have in mind, as I imagine the right hon. Gentleman has, the feeling that we do not want to have too cheap a meal; that is to say, we do not want a meal that is so cheap as to be neither agreeable for the children nor have the nutritional value that we want it to have. We do not want to make cheapness the great aim which the authorities are to have before them in operating the Measure. Admittedly, we do not want to run expensive meals, but we want to see that the meals have all the elements of nutrition and are such that the children will enjoy them. I think that is a matter to which attention ought to be paid.
Another aspect of the matter is that a very large proportion of Scottish parents, particularly if they have three or four youngsters attending school at the same time, will find that a meal at 5d.—for four children, seven days a week—will run up to a pretty hefty bill by the end of the week. I hope that the authorities, in laying down the scales as to who is to receive the meals free and who is to pay, will not impose any disagreeable means test, and that a very broad view will be taken and the position looked at generously in regard to the person who is neither so necessitous as to require to have the meal for nothing or so well off as to be able to afford anything that is asked.
I can foresee tremendous difficulties in some of the smaller schools—and again with some of the county authorities that I can think of—in putting this job on to teachers as an additional job. I think it would be a mistake for highly paid and specially trained teachers to neglect their ordinary educational work for the sake of getting the dinner ready. There are teachers who would do it, and would take to this sort of thing enthusiastically, to the neglect of other work, which, I am afraid, during these 2½ years of war has been very badly messed about already. I do not neglect at all the educational aspect of a meal in school. It might be from some points of view as important an educational period as that devoted to the multiplication table. But "man shall not live by bread alone," the multiplication table is a painful and necessary part of a child's education, and the teacher is there primarily for the training of the youngster's mind rather than the filling of his stomach. I hope authorities will be instructed to see that special staffs are engaged in the preparation and the serving of the meals and that the teacher's ordinary work will not be cut into by the necessity of making preparations for the meal. The other week-end my wife was indisposed, and I was trying to be the angel of the home, and I found that to run a small home meant an interference with the ordinary work that I wanted to do. If that is true for one or two persons, it is far more true particularly in some of these preposterous one-teacher schools that we have dotted all over Scotland, where one teacher has to do the educational work of from 15 to 30 pupils at all ages and all stages; and if, in addition, this work is thrust upon him, I am afraid that poor old Scottish education is going to be in a bad way. I hope the Secretary of State, in issuing his instructions, will give some indication to the authorities that special staffs should be employed for doing this work.
Another thing that has been brought to my notice by a correspondent is that the school management committees could be a useful agency in this matter. It is not referred to in the Bill at all nor, as far as I can remember, in the basic legislation. There is no need to refer to it, because any education authority can remit to the local management committee any

of its duties that it cares to. A large proportion of them have not remitted very much to these committees, but this is a matter in which they can be brought into activity, particularly in the rural counties, and when the right hon. Gentleman is sending out the necessary instructions, some reference might be made there to the part that these committees might play. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for taking the necessary steps to bring this Bill before us, and I express tremendous regret that it takes two great wars and a whole lot of difficulties about food supplies to convince the people of Great Britain that it is worth while looking after the health, the growth and the development of our youngsters.

Major Thornton-Kemsley (Aberdeen and Kincardine, Western): I think that most of us are agreed that the importance of this Bill is out of all proportion to the number of its Clauses. From a practical point of view, it will enable a great many mothers to engage in essential war work who would otherwise be tied to their homes awaiting the mid-day return of their children. It has an importance and significance which are even greater than that. It is significant, because at a time when the whole world is at war a democratic Parliament thinks it worth while to turn its eyes from the sombre and enthralling present to plan for the future of little children. It is important, because if we choose to make it so this can be a first instalment of a new plan for our nation. We in Scotland have always been proud of our Scottish education which has nearly always been good. The record of health and nutrition is not so good. Between seven and eight of every 100 of our children die in infancy as against three in every 100 in New Zealand. Tuberculosis has increased, as have also cerebro-spinal fever and diphtheria. We can immunise against diphtheria, and all of us on these benches are watching with great interest the progress of the immunisation campaign, but the only way in which we can immunise against malnutrition is by group feeding. That can be begun in the schools.
The study of nutritional needs which has been made in recent years in places like the Rowett Institute and which has been referred to by Sir John Orr and Mr. David Lubbock in that admirable booklet, "Feeding the People in War-time,"


shows that nearly one-third of our population subsist on a diet which is below the standard which is now known to be necessary if health is to be maintained and under-nourishment avoided. If we pass this Bill, it will be nceessary for teachers to be constantly on the look out for any symptoms of malnutrition. Where they are ascertained to be present and are brought to the attention of the education authorities, it will be incumbent upon those authorities to provide food. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), whose speech I so much enjoyed, cast a doubt on the fact that education authorities who are recalcitrant can be compelled. I join issue with him there, because Clause 2 of the Bill says,
the education authority shall make such provision for the child.
That will not enable an authority to escape, once this need has been brought to its notice. We shall place a duty upon it which it will be bound by statute to fulfil.

Mr. Maxton: That is the existing law under which we are working. You had to prove necessity, malnutrition and so on. This is the only "shall" there is.

Major Thornton-Kemsley: I agree to a certain extent with the hon. Member, but I maintain that where it has been brought to the notice of an education authority that there are symptoms of undernourishment it will be incumbent upon that authority to make provision for feeding the child.

Major Lloyd: Is not that the law at the present time?

Major Thornton-Kemsley: Yes, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has pointed out the cumbrous procedure that has to be gone through before those provisions can be operated, and what we want to do is to cut away this unnecessary red tape in order to make provision immediately for the child when under-nourishment exists.
In a country in which "the piece" is deeply entrenched and which has been so sadly behind in the development of British Restaurants, the communal feeding of children will need intelligent preparation and good cooking. Experience in Wales has not been encouraging. There, if I understand rightly, in cases where

facilities for meals were provided in the elementary schools only about 4 per cent. of the children have, so far, taken advantage of them. We must do a great deal better than that in Scotland. My right hon. Friend has given us a sort of target figure of 20 per cent. I hope he will not be content with 20 per cent., not content until we get 100 per cent. if it can be proved that the facilities are needed. Most children like fish and chips, suet puddings and jam tarts; they do not all like green vegetables or soups or fats, but it will be necessary to select foods from both those groups if we are to give them the right kind of meals. It will be necessary also when we are able to provide the ingredients to give them during the summer months meals of the Oslo type. My right hon. Friend will need the help not only of dieticians but of those clever people who are able to make an unpalatable but wholesome meal into a bonne bouche. I think he will be wise also if he obtains the interest of the Minister of Food in his scheme, because the Noble Lord has all sorts of facilities for cooking and for providing transport in and near the big cities which will be of great value.
Let us not worry too much about the cost of this scheme. Most of us—I hope all of us—are determined that never again shall our Scottish agriculture be allowed to decline, and in order to secure that we shall have to subsidise the home producer; indeed it is difficult to see how that can be avoided if we are to maintain and increase the existing rate of agricultural wages. To provide an increased home market for the kinds of food which we can grow best at home—potatoes, milk, green vegetables and our good Scots oatmeal—will help to maintain agricultural prices and so lessen the need for subsidies. Looked at in this light, the Bill may well mark the initiation of a clear and simple home policy, a policy which everyone can understand and in the formulation of which every one of us here can bear a part. Does that seem to be too visionary? When the danger which has brought us together has passed are we going to start again on the petty bickerings about policies which are so necessary for the country and upon which all of us can agree if only we try hard enough to do so? It was said of old, "A little child shall lead them." Here in this modest little Bill we are beginning at the right end; we


are beginning with the children. Can we not make this Bill the first instalment of an agreed plan for a healthier and happier Scotland?

Mr. Barr: I was very interested to hear the account given by the Secretary of State for Scotland, in which he went back to his earlier days when he stood almost alone in public life in fighting in favour of school feeding. He left out one incident which I think is of interest. I was standing in 1903 my first contest as candidate for the School Board of Glasgow, when he came along in order to take a canvassing card and canvass on my behalf. That was one of the great honours I received in early life. I remember the first years of my membership of the School Board of Glasgow. There were then 15 members; they were increased to 25 later. Only four of them were in favour of feeding schoolchildren on any terms. One of them was Mr. Martin Haddow, to whom the right hon. Gentleman referred. Another was Dr. Dyer, who rose to be chairman of the Board. I remember that, in 1906, after its election, the Board's first act was to send a representative to London to oppose any idea of feeding of schoolchildren, cither for England or for Scotland. In some respects England was ahead of Scotland at that time. I remember a remarkable occasion in the House of Commons when a Resolution was carried in favour of the proper feeding of schoolchildren. Since then, I have lived to see all parties contending one with another which can go furthest in providing milk and proper feeding for the schoolchildren. What was once a battle, and a keen battle at that, has become a race, almost, as to who will do the most in this regard.
The main objection against the feeding of schoolchildren, as it was then proposed, was that it would undermine the responsibility of the parents, and interfere with the sanctity of the home. We did not then realise sufficiently, as we realise now, that you must have a material as well as a moral basis for the home. I am the last to seek to undermine, and would rather emphasise, moral values as the foundation of a happy and healthful home; but a good, solid, material foundation is needed also, on which to build. The whole attitude has changed from those times to the times to which we have now come. The first idea, which will be found in the Act

of 1908, was: Here is a child suffering from malnutrition and lack of food and clothing, and unable to take advantage of the education offered to it. The first thought that came to them then was prosecution.
Due warning was to be given, and then it was to go, if need be, before the Sheriff to find out whether it was due to gross neglect by the parents. If it was so found by the Board or by the Sheriff, the case was to be reported to the Procurator Fiscal for prosecution. Emphasis was laid on the heinousness of the offence, which was to be punishable as an offence under the Cruelty to Children Acts. In conformity with the Act of 1904, it was defined as "wilful neglect likely to cause a child unnecessary suffering" within the meaning of that Act. Then if it was discovered that the child was unable to take advantage of the education because he was really suffering from lack of proper food and clothing, the next thought was that voluntary agencies should provide what was lacking—everything to stave off the day when the public authority would step in with any responsibility. That again proved to be quite inadequate, and only then did the Board provide—indeed, they were bound to provide—the necessary food and clothing.
I think the scheme outlined in this Bill and explained by the Minister is a real advance. The moral aspect of the question still remains, and if there is gross neglect, it can still be dealt with under the law. Here, however, we have the whole subject on broad, humanitarian and universal scholastic grounds. Attention is to be paid to the nutrition not only of those who plead poverty but to all, whatever may be the condition of the child and the parents. We are looking forward to a time when education will be on a broader basis altogether. We have come now, in a city like Glasgow and in many parts of the country in Lanarkshire, to treat all children on an equal basis. We have free elementary education and, generally speaking, free higher education in our secondary schools. It is one of the elements of this Measure which appeal to us that it puts the nutrition of the child on a broad humanitarian basis and treats all children alike. It makes us think of the time towards which we are always, I trust, travelling forward, when poverty itself


will be eliminated, and when the fullest provision will be made for all, regardless of their social conditions. There is a verse in Deuteronomy, Chapter XV, verse 11—I am not sure if it is correctly translated in the Authorised Version; I rather think not—which has been often quoted:
For the poor shall never cease out of the land.
It was often quoted in support of the continuance of poverty, and as an excuse by those who maintained that the helping of the poor was a field for the resources of the rich. But those who quoted that verse did not note that almost alongside it, in the same chapter, verse 4, was this better time coming:
Save when there shall be no poor among you; for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it.
We are looking forward and, I trust, struggling to the time when that discrimination of rich and poor shall have passed away; we shall have none—
Save when there shall be no poor among you.
Seeing that I am quoting Scripture, I will close with another verse. When Zechariah is describing the better Jerusalem which is being rebuilt in his time, he pictures it as a Jerusalem in which there are seen
old men and old women in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age ";
and alongside of them the fulness of young life:
and the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.
That is a picture to which we would look forward—happy, tended boys and girls, full of energy. I notice in the report of the experiment to which the Minister referred in Lanarkshire that one of the teachers, speaking of the new energy of those who had partaken of this experiment, said it had gone too far, and that they were becoming rather too boisterous for his teaching purposes.

Mr. Johnston: They were going to fight policemen.

Mr. Barr: That at any rate was a pretty striking illustration. I remember once when it was proposed that our Sunday schools should meet at two o'clock in the afternoon instead of at five, one

argument was that the child's mind was more alert and the child more active and energetic at 2 p.m. One of the teachers, now a professor, my own son, indeed, said he thought they were active enough at five in the afternoon without changing to two. That is the picture there drafted and for which we are striving, a generation of young people, strong in body, buoyant in life and energy, and enriched in mind.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: I should like to add only a few words to this general discussion, as it is very late. Nobody could possibly be opposed to this Bill, but must indeed bless it. The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) got right down to the pith of the problem. I think we are a little too apt to say, when a Bill for social progress, obviously good, comes before the House, "It is all right, good. It is a fine Bill." But everything depends on the administration. Nobody knows that better than my right hon. Friend. I am not one of those who believe that this is a war merely for survival. I believe the more we can say about the future on as uncontroversial a basis as possible the better for us and for everybody else. I was. told the other day that they would like to know in South American countries about some remarks I made at a small meeting about a Ministry of Childhood. I asked of what conceivable interest it could be to South American countries. The man replied that it might seem so to me, but that it gave a sense of confidence that we were going to win this war and that we were concerned about the future. That remark was made by a distinguished journalist.
But it is rather ironical that, as the hon. Member for Bridgeton said, it has taken, not one war but two wars, literally, to make the people of Scotland wake up to this public scandal. We had a system of education 200 years before England. It was all right: it produced men who went out all over the world and created the Empire, and it produced a number of men who "made good," as they say. But what was left behind? Every Scottish Members knows that not only housing conditions but health conditions in Scotland, in the urban centres, are worse than in England. They are worse than in a good many places which we feel are backward countries. That blot can be


removed only by the most drastic measures. I was very glad to hear my right hon. Friend introduce this Bill. I used to listen with great interest, from the side of the House on which he now sits, to the speeches that he made on nutrition. I was particularly interested in a remark that he made to-day, that, whereas in the 19th century sanitation was the keynote, it may be that in the 20th century nutrition will be the keynote of a big advance in health.
My hon. Friend the Member for Coat-bridge (Mr. Barr), who, although not a Member for Ayrshire, has long been resident in Ayrshire, has raised the question of the home. Do not let us run away from this problem. Most of the opposition to this communal feeding was on the ground that it was breaking up the home. Letters appeared in the "Times," only a month ago, to that effect. The same objection is made in regard to nursery schools, laundries, and everything which is being taken, like industry is, out of the home. We have to make up our minds what we think about this. I hold the view that until a number of things are taken out of the home—as industry was taken out of the home, and put into a factory—no working mother is likely to have the chance of a decent life. It is very easy to talk about the home, but some of us have been making investigations lately about the number of hours that a working mother with three children has to spend in the home if there are to be three meals a day. It is sheer drudgery. Until this question is put on a rational basis, and faced, we shall get these old obscurantist arguments—and, in some cases, very good arguments—put up in defence of the home. As the hon. Member for Bridgeton says, this is not a nutrition Measure, it is an education Measure. The old idea that education consists of five hours a day, five days a week, being spent in a place called a school, is out of date. In Ayrshire, we are feeding 20 per cent. of the children, but we are feeding them not from the school, but from canteens in Ayr and elsewhere. The essence of the thing is the school garden, with fresh vegetables, all overheads paid by the county authority, the children taking part in the process of serving the meal and waiting at table, as they have done at Christ's Hospital for the past 20 years.

Mr. McNeil: For hundreds of years.

Mr. Lindsay: Not on that basis. The teachers at Kilmarnock have rebelled against taking part in school meals. What is the answer of my right hon. Friend to that? Is he going to say that this is part of teaching work? What is the function of a teacher to-day? The function of a school is not five hours a day, with young people sitting in rows, but a lively community centre, where there is feeding, and where there are gardens, workshops and domestic science on a new basis. That is what is happening in all the live places. Scotland has to get used to the fact that you do not necessarily have a good system of education by having 20 counties doing roughly the same thing. I have come to the conclusion that the environment side, the buildings, the milk, the food, should be equal, otherwise what is the meaning of "equality of opportunity"? Why, if you were born in Edinburgh, should it mean one thing, and, if you were born in Kilmarnock, another? It is fantastic. There is no phrase as susceptible to humbug as the phrase "equality of opportunity." I ask the right hon. Gentleman to analyse the position every time he has to give attention to it. If you are to have compulsion, and (even standardisation in the provision of food, then let us have every variety in education itself. Let us have the greatest flexibility in the curriculum, from the nursery school up to the university.
There is another question that I want to ask in connection with the case of the recalcitrant authority. Who brings the matter to the notice of the authority? In the old days there was a very elaborate provision. Who brings to the notice of the education authority the fact that a child is suffering from malnutrition or is not suffering from malnutrition but is a long way off proper nutrition?

Mr. Johnston: The medical officer, the teacher, the attendance officer, members of the school board, anyone.

Mr. Lindsay: A job that belongs to anyone is very often not done. Therefore, it is a good idea that it shall be somebody's job, and I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that there is only one way in which to do this thing. He will before long have to make surveys. How can he find out who are the children? It is no


good waiting until a state of malnutrition. I know the right hon. Gentleman does not want that sort of thing. How is he going to detect it beforehand? I suggest that the only way is to have a survey, and after that a second survey by the Department itself, so that he can say that in a particular area, say, in Ayrshire, there are 3 per cent. of the children suffering and in need of meals, and perhaps 5 per cent. on the borderline. Unless a survey is made—and I know that the matter has been speeded up in war-time and that you may get a big increase—there will be great danger of many children slipping through unless the medical officer, the teacher or some public-spirited person on the education committee happens to bring cases to notice.

Mr. Johnston: This is a matter of very considerable importance. May I draw the attention of my hon. Fiend to the fact that I instanced a case in Scotland where, as a result of medical examination, we got variations in the number of children who were alleged to be under-nourished, such as in one county 19 per cent. and in an adjoining county nothing? It is very difficult.

Mr. Maxton: Do His Majesty's inspectors who work directly under the Minister himself receive instructions about this business?

Mr. Johnston: I would not care to answer that question offhand, but I do know that the school medical service ought to be doing it.

Mr. Lindsay: I suggest that there is a way out. The local authorities should make a survey, and the Department should make a covering survey. This would be a convenient way of checking up. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman is familiar with this point. A survey could be made by local authorities and inspectors from the central Department; and if local authorities themselves did not make the survey, it could be made by the Department, in default. This has been done in 12 counties in England in recent years.
One hon. Member threw out a challenge about this question which I should like to take up. He asked whether it was not possible for some of these Measures to be taken out of ordinary party politics?

Well, if we have to wait until parties in Scotland make up their minds, it is time parties were abolished. This matter cannot wait and I want the right hon. Gentleman to press on, beyond 20 per cent. if he can. It often happens that in wartime, people's habits change and there is more chance of getting something done. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on bringing this Measure into the forefront of social reform in Scotland and I only hope that the administration will be equal to the success which he has had with this Bill so far.

Mr. Kirkwood: I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is introducing this Bill. It is certainly an advance on the 1908 Act but it retains a principle which I have fought against ever since it was instituted in this House—the means test, the blackest piece of legislation we have ever put through. I wish my right hon. Friend had had a little more courage and had taken this principle out of this Bill. He said that Section 6 of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908, would be repealed but these words are retained:
Where an education authority make provision for a child in pursuance of this Section they shall be entitled to recover from the parent of the child the expense thereby incurred. …
I know there is a lot of talk about the people who can afford it being made to pay, but in this case you are penalising those who cannot pay. Nobody knows better than my right hon. Friend that Scots do not like folk probing into their circumstances. They resent it very much. They do not parade their poverty. He knows those sentiments and has echoed them many times. He should be the last person to retain this principle of the means test, particularly at a time when we are supposed to be making plans for a new world order. Here was a glorious opportunity for my right hon. Friend. Sarcastic references have been made occasionally in this House to the boast that the Scots are well-educated. I am an ordinary engineer and I am the father of seven children who have gone through the Scottish education system and who can take their place among the best-educated in England. They are the products of Scottish education.

Mrs. Hardie: And a good mother.

Mr. Kirkwood: Yes. In spite of all the drawbacks, they were educated by the Scottish system. I know the drawbacks of 36 years back, when we paid for their education, paid for their books, paid for everything. The benefits that have accrued to Scottish children in my time are beyond the wildest dreams of the Socialists of my youth. That is the good groundwork on which the present Secretary of State, a Socialist, has the opportunity of building at a time when the atmosphere in the House is such that I am sure hon. Members would agree to allow the means test to be wiped out. I appeal to the Secretary of State to eliminate it entirely from the Bill.
The only other point I want to mention refers to the school management committees. I cannot speak for other constituencies, but I can speak for my own constituency. The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary know that if there is one place where the school management committees take an interest in their work, it is in Clydebank and Dumbarton. I ask the Secretary of State to give the school management committees all the encouragement he can. How essential it is that we should see to it that our children are not only well educated but well fed. The most essential thing with the children is to be fed. It is more important than education. The Scottish children were never better fed than they were at the back end of the last war, when the feeding was on an organised plan. The Secretary of State has all that experience, and I ask him to put his practical experience into this Measure. Nevertheless, I welcome the Bill.

Major Lloyd: I confess that I do not view the whole of the contents of the Bill with the same enthusiasm as some hon. Members. On the other hand, I am not in the least surprised at the enthusiasm with which the Bill has been received by certain hon. Members opposite, because undoubtedly it is almost 100 per cent. a Socialist Measure. I do not object to it on that ground, because I recognise that a coalition Government must inevitably be a government of give and take, and here is something for those who believe in Socialism which I am not prepared on principle to oppose. But I feel, on examination of the Bill, that it would be quite impossible to let it go without some

safeguards and some Amendments, because I think that it makes the education authorities and our schools altogether too much like charity organisation societies. The Bill seems to take away a very great deal of the independence of the Scottish people and to encourage far too much State aid and spoon-feeding, which have been so entirely contrary to the character of the Scottish people up to date.
It seems to me to be a very great pity that we should give in Clause 1 as I read it, carte blanche to any education authority so minded to provide complete meals for every child in the school. Admittedly, if the Bill centred on the problem of necessitous children, those who needed feeding, those suffering in any way from malnutrition there is not a Member of the House nor a citizen of the country who would not give it 100 per cent. support but, unless I read the Bill wrongly, it is in no way confined to those suffering from malnutrition. It gives carte blanche to feed the children in school and to provide full meals, at the complete discretion of any particular education authority. There are education authorities and education authorities. Some recognise the value of independence and are not so desperately keen on State aid unless it is necessary in the interests of the children. Others, on the other hand, jump rapidly at the opportunity of giving State aid, especially when it is not going to cost them too much. There should be greater opportunity for a local authority to prove to the satisfaction of the Education Department and the Secretary of State that there is full justification if they take complete advantage of this Sub-section.
In Sub-section (3), I do not like the wording "shall be entitled to recover." I do not see why you should not leave out the words "shall be entitled to" and simply say "shall recover," because that again seems to give a local authority which might hold certain views, a considerable advantage, at the expense of the State or the ratepayers to a large extent, over other local authorities who might not hold the same views. I suggest that an Amendment to the Clause will be necessary to make the Bill more satisfactory. It may be unpopular to express these views and they are not, I know, liked by


other people, but I am prepared to express them because I regard this proposal as a move in the wrong direction. If it were a case of State aid for necessitous children, that would be grand. But it is a Measure of Socialist spoon-feeding, and contrary to the highest principles of Scotland.

Mrs. Hardie: I welcome the Bill. This legislation is very near my heart. Like the Secretary of State, I also fought my first election for the school board on this particular issue and, to my surprise, I was returned. The only difference is that my election was for an important constituency in Glasgow whereas his was for a little tinpot authority known as Kirkintilloch. I regret that we have not a more far-reaching Bill. It would be one of the greatest health measures possible to give every child a proper, well-balanced meal irrespective of what the parents earned. If you put it on the rates or taxes it would "even out" and those with bigger incomes and no children would help those with smaller incomes and big families, because a bigger population is needed to carry on the affairs of the State. I welcome the Bill even with its limitation, because it is a step in the right direction. I wish, however, that it had been made compulsory because certain local authorities shelter behind these provisions and consider that it is not important that they should put the feeding of the children into operation. Everybody will agree that it is particularly necessary at the present time to feed all children, apart from necessitous children. The mothers are being asked to go into war factories and leave their children, and while there are nursery schools and homes and while provision is made to a certain extent for the children from 2 to 5, nothing is done for the school children. In Glasgow, numbers of children are wandering about the streets without proper meals and being put off with bread and margarine.
What is to happen in future? There will be no saving to the rates and taxes because we shall have to provide for the children who fall into ill-health. The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr Maxton) spoke about the number of rickety children who attended the school to which he went in the East End of Glasgow. The terrible number of rickety children used

to be attributed to the soft water, but it was found that the children in the West End of Glasgow were not rickety. The disease prevailed among the children in the poor districts and was due to want of vitamins and sunlight. There is not much sunlight owing to the dark climate and the high tenements. Many parents do not understand about well-balanced meals and the foods that contain vitamins, and as a result of rationing and restrictions it is more difficult than ever to get the proper foods. Certainly women in factories cannot do it. I can understand the point of view of the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrew (Major Lloyd), for I have lived in his county and know the kind of person who lives there. They have not a big city such as Glasgow to look after. Under the old Education Act the School Board of Glasgow fed the children who needed it and they had a scale under which if parents were earning less than a certain amount, the board provided food for the children. Some ratepayers, like the people who live in Renfrew, discovered that the Act was not drafted to cover that provision and that unless it was proved through a doctor or in some other way that a child was suffering from malnutrition, it could not be fed. The same thing applied to clothing, and difficulties were put in the way of progressive school boards carrying out this provision.
I want to say a word about clothing. Having been a shop assistant, I think about it as well as food. Clothing is a necessity for health. When the evacuation scheme was introduced we heard a lot about dirty children from Glasgow. You cannot keep children or grown-up people clean unless they have a change of clothes. I am glad, therefore, that the Government are going into the clothing question from the point of view of health. When children are not properly clothed the authorities will have power to provide clothes for them, where the parents are not able to do so. Where the parents have sufficient income they will be forced to see that the children are kept properly clean and clothed. I have much pleasure in welcoming the Bill, but at the same time I associate myself with the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) in saying that it is a pity it is not compulsory and that it is not to be put on the rates, because a lot of children who need feeding will not get it. It would


have been worth while to have taken a bigger plunge and to have said that, from the point of view of having a healthy nation, every child should be provided with food and clothing.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I agree with the hon. Lady in deploring the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd), with whom I am very often in agreement. On this matter I think he expressed a thoroughly reactionary view. To provide free meals for school children is surely no more a Socialist measure than to provide free education. To-day nobody regards free education as Bolshevism, and I feel that we are boggling at a real problem by attempting to continue making parents responsible for paying sometimes and not at other times. Therefore, I find myself here in agreement with the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood), which is not always the case. I feel that it would be infinitely better if we laid it down now that a part of free education is a free midday meal for all children. I say that with some little experience of the need for it in a country district like Fife. There we have not only ploughmen's children but often the children of farmers going long distances to school each day. In the case of the ploughmen's children, and sometimes also in the case of farmers' children, they go off in the morning having had only little to eat, and if there is no meal for them in the middle of the day they are left for 12 hours with no proper nourishment in their stomachs, and that does real harm. It costs the State far more in recovering their health, and it causes a gradual fall in the standard of man-power in the country districts. Therefore I should like this Bill to be amended in such a way as to make the provision of a free meal part of the educational system.
I wish to say a word in reference to some observations which were made about the Act of 1908. My right hon. friend referred to some of its provisions as being, I think he said, "intolerable," and said their efforts had been "cabin'd, cribb'd and confin'd," and somebody else described that Act as a public scandal. I feel the references to that measure have been a little ungrateful. After all, 1908 was 33 years ago, and a Liberal Government 33 years ago was progressive enough

to make those provisions. Let me read them:
Provided that it shall be shown to the satisfaction of the School Board that such parents… are unable by reason of poverty or ill-health to provide sufficient and proper food and clothing for the children… in such a case, if the Board is so satisfied, it shall make such provision for the child out of the school fund as it deems necessary.
We ought to pay a little tribute to our predecessors of 33 years ago for being so advanced as to make that provision. It is true that it was hedged in with a number of conditions which we now wish to sweep aside, but it is slightly ungrateful to speak as though nothing had been done when, in fact, a big advance was made.

Mr. Kirkwood: They built the bridge at that time, but they were afraid to cross and become Socialists.

Mr. Magnay: But they built the bridge. It was the bridge which mattered.

Mr. Stewart: I gather that there is to be a Committee stage of the Bill, and therefore the detailed points which I had intended to raise need not be raised now. I have mentioned to the Under-Secretary only one of a number of Amendments which I should like later to put upon the Paper. It is an Amendment concerning a matter of considerable importance. I am sorry the Bill is confined to provisions relating to food and clothing, and I propose to ask whether it ought not to include lack of medical attention as one of the statutory reasons preventing a child taking full advantage of the education provided for it. The Act of 1913 made provision for medical and surgical attention. It is now proposed to repeal Section 6 of the Act of 1908, with reference to which the Act of 1913 has always been applied, and the Act of 1913 will be left rather in the air. In order to ensure that medical attention is, in fact, provided, I am suggesting that the lack of it should be regarded as a statutory reason. In order to avoid the awful business of cross-reference from one Act of Parliament to another, I suggest that it would be well to repeal the Act of 1913 as well as the Act of 1908, and to introduce into the Bill words in regard to medical attention. I propose to put Amendments down in that sense. There are some smaller points which seem important but which can be


raised upon the Committee stage. My right hon. Friend is to be congratulated on the Measure so far as it goes, but I wish he would take his courage in his hands and go the whole hog, as I believe the House desires.

Mr. McNeil: I associate myself with the congratulations that have been offered to the Secretary of State for Scotland, and I would include the Ministry of Food for their generous co-operation in regard to this Measure, the necessity for which is obvious. Apart from the educational necessity, it is plain that the measures indicated by the Ministry of Labour last week will be impossible of fulfilment without the Bill. The Ministry of Labour made proposals in relation to the conscription of married women for industry. In Renfrewshire, about 1 per cent. of the children are being fed in school, but in the same area are two huge engineering towns. One is my own division. It can be fairly presumed that the Ministry of Labour hopes to direct many married women into those engineering shops. Effective servce cannot be obtained from such women unless their children are provided with the essential meals and if those women are worried about rations and about their children and, eventually, when they are confronted with ill-health.
There are two points that I would put before the Secretary of State for Scotland. In the circular which he is giving us we are impresed with the quantities of food which are being made available to each centre. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not stop short of seeing that the cooking of the food is adequate. Those of us with experience of local government know that one of the big curses with which we are confronted is institutional cooking. Any modern doctor will readily agree that food shovelled down children's mouths loses a substantial portion of its benefit. I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will see that good food is not wasted by bad cooking and that it is cooked in an attractive form and served in an attractive and palatable manner.
The second point is this: I am much impressed with the simplicity, of which many Members have already spoken, of the second paragraph of the first Clause of the Bill, where it says:

When it is brought to the notice of an education authority…
My right hon. Friend has already told the House that this means when the necessity is brought to the notice of the authority by anyone. I hope that by some kind of propaganda method the Secretary of State for Scotland, in collaboration with the Minister of Labour, will make sure that this is brought to the notice of every woman interviewed and conscripted into service. I suggest, indeed, that he might consider designing a hand-bill which will be available in the Employment Exchanges to be handed out to each mother, to make it plain to her that she has a right to report to the education authority, not that her child is under-nourished, but that, because she is undertaking National Service, she is no longer able to feed her child in an adequate manner. That surely is a complete reply to the deplorable argument introduced at this stage by the hon. and gallant Member for Eastern Renfrew (Major Lloyd). I should like to compliment the hon. and gallant Member for West Edinburgh (Lieut.-Commander Hutchison) on his able and well-balanced maiden speech, and may I suggest, very deferentially, that he should take his colleague from Eastern Renfrew into the tea-room and give him his copy of Benjamin Disraeli so that the light of Benjamin Disraeli quoted in support of this Measure may be used to illuminate the political darkness still existing in 1941.
Like other hon. Members, I should like to see the Clause giving power to collect the cost taken away. I take it that the Secretary of State for Scotland has inserted that Clause because this is a necessary war-time Measure and he was going out of his way to avoid political controversy at the present stage. I hope, however, that it is not going to be merely a war-time emergency Measure. I hope we shall see it as an essential peace-time establishment. Let me put it this way, in reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Eastern Renfrew. The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) told us that he remembered, some time about the beginning of this century, when Swedish drill was first introduced to Scottish schools—a distinct advance. In 1875 a gymnasium was not considered an essential part of education, but. we did not then go to the parents of the children and tell them that because the gymnasium was not an educa-


tional feature we were therefore going to collect from them as much as they could afford to pay for their children's use of the gymnasium. As a gymnasium is an essential part of a school, so is a dining room, and I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will establish it in good time as a permanent feature. When that time comes I hope he will wipe out this Clause, to which we would object, but the necessity for which we understand and sympathise with at the present time.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Westwood): My right hon. Friend has little cause for complaint at the way in which this Bill has been received by the House. There has, I think, been only one jarring note, and I will have something to say about that before I finish. So far as practically all the other hon. Members of the House are concerned, they accept this as a war Measure to deal with a war problem, and I, for one, sincerely hope that I shall live to see a Socialist Measure introduced. Despite the pride I have in this Measure, I shall have still greater pride when I see a Socialist Measure introduced into this House. This Government was formed to see the war successfully carried through, and this is part of our war effort and part of our war legislation.
Several questions have been put, and I shall try to deal with the points raised. First, let me congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for West Edinburgh (Lieut.-Commander Hutchison) on the helpful speech that he made. I am sure that his further incursions into the Debates of this House will be equally useful. He put one or two points with which I shall try to deal. First of all, he put the point whether we would see to it that all authorities did their best to make this Bill a success. The same point was raised by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) and by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay). No matter what kind of Bill you place on the Statute Book, it may be practically of no use if you have not effective and efficient administration. It is in administration that success lies so far as the Bill is concerned. Therefore, I can give the assurance that we are going to do everything possible to make the administration a success. Directed towards that end, we have already issued circulars to local authorities. I quote from one dated 19th

November. The point I am dealing with was raised by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and the hon. Member for Bridgeton. Paragraph 2 of that circular said:
The Secretary of State attaches the greatest importance to the scheme. He will not be satisfied unless the provision of solid meals to school children over the country as a whole is trebled by midsummer, 1942.
Just now only 7 per cent. are getting a solid meal in Scotland. We are aiming at 20 per cent. by midsummer. That will not be the end, as far as we are concerned. The maximum number have to get the maximum benefit of the Bill before the House. In that circular the Secretary of State went on to say that he intended to review progress, county by country, in six months' time, and that each authority will be called upon to submit by 1st June, 1942, a report showing the position reached in the area at mid-May in regard to the provision of meals to children. We intend to urge the local authorities to carry out to the very utmost the powers now being given to them and the duties being imposed upon them.
The second point raised by the hon. and gallant Member for West Edinburgh was whether it would be competent to provide clothing and food for children under five who are attending nursery schools of any kind, and whether it would be possible under the Bill to make provision for children who are attending schools like nursery schools. I can assure him that the Bill applies to children attending any school, including nursery schools, whether under an education authority or under private management. I have already dealt with the point raised by the hon. Member for Bridgeton. I entirely agree with some of the remarks he made.

Mr. Maxton: On that point with reference to the nursery schools, what about the under five-year-olds?

Mr. Westwood: There is no limitation; it applies to any school in the area.

Mr. Maxton: But what about nursery schools?

Mr. Westwood: Nursery schools are included. There is no limitation. In a previous Debate, the hon. Member pointed out that, because of war conditions, you would have children who could not attend school until the first entrance


date after they had reached the age of five, instead of going on the last entrance date before they reached the age of five, and that, in the meantime, there was no provision for that child. But we are deeming, for the purposes of this Bill, that a child who reaches the age of five, although not in attendance at school, is entitled to milk. This Bill will provide for children attending any school. We are helping some of the poorer authorities by raising their grant and, as I have said, we shall not be satisfied unless we have raised the 7 per cent., which is the present figures of those who are receiving nourishment, to 20 per cent. by midsummer. That is only a step which we are taking, in the hope that the maximum number of children will benefit, and that we shall get the maximum co-operation from those responsible for the administration of the scheme. We agree that what has to be considered is not so much the cost of the meal as the real nutritional value. We will stress to local authorities that their aim must be the provision of meals of real nutritional value. To help the local authorities, my right hon. Friend is going to appoint a nutritional expert. Then we shall impress upon the local authorities the need for more training in domestic science. We shall train the girls, especially, during the last two years of school life to make good substantial meals and to get real value from the money expended. That brings me to the point made by the hon. Member opposite, that we should have standardisation. You cannot have standardisation in regard to either education or the provision of meals.

Mr. Lindsay: I did not ask for standardisation.

Mr. Westwood: I must have taken the hon. Member up wrong. Standardisation is quite unsuitable.

Mr. Lindsay: The last thing that I would have said is that we should have standardisation of feeding. The only thing that I said was that there was inequality among the authorities.

Mr. Westwood: Local authorities are elected bodies and are responsible to the electorate. That is one of our forms of democracy. I am anxious to give a certain amount of freedom to those local authorities, always guiding them in the right direction. I wish I had been able

to get the County of Fife to make the progress suggested by my hon. Friend the Member tor East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart). I recall obstacles being placed in my way when I tried to help the school children. I happened to be one of the Members, referred to by the Secretary of State when he introduced this Bill, who belonged to the local authority to be surcharged to the extent of £69,000. We succeeded in feeding the children, and then some ratepayer took a case to the courts. In the constituency from which the hon. Member comes they ran candidates for the purpose of getting them on to the Fife education authority so as to make it impossible for us to continue to treat the children in the way we had done. But changes have come since those days. I remember the fight for the feeding of necessitous school children. I am proud that I have lived to see the day when these obstacles are to be removed. It is to be possible by this Bill to make it easy to feed necessitous children and to provide the first steps towards reaching the ideal, that it should be part and parcel of our educational system to provide at least one solid meal per day for all children attending school.

Mr. Magnay: Surely the hon. Gentleman means a substantial meal, not a solid meal?

Mr. Westwood: I am not prepared to accept what the hon. Gentleman suggests, but I will alter the phrase "solid meal" to a "well-balanced meal."
There is no reason why the local education authorities should not use the school management committees in the work of administration, but that will be a matter entirely for the education authorities responsible for working this Bill.

Mr. Kirkwood: The hon. Gentleman says that they are to leave it to the education authorities. What about the education authorities that do not wish to encourage the activities of a school management committee?

Mr. Westwood: My hon. Friend, I am sure, will appreciate that that is an entirely different question. Powers under the Act enable a local education authority, namely, the county council, to devolve certain duties upon the school management committee. There is no reason why those powers should not go


to the school management committee, but we have no power to intervene under the existing law, if the local education authority do not see fit to take the school management committee into their full confidence. I have already indicated that we expect to get the whole-hearted co-operation of local education authorities in making the Bill a success. I assure the hon. and gallant Member for West Aberdeen (Major Thornton-Kemsley) that we are to have the whole-hearted cooperation of the Minister of Food, who is to do everything possible to enable us to make a success of the scheme that is before the House at the present time.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock asked who could draw the attention of education authorities to the fact that children could not benefit by education because of lack of food. I would have liked to have seen the school medical services more fully developed; that is one of the things that will have to be tackled in connection with the educational problems that will arise after the war, but parents can draw the attention of an education authority to the fact that a child could not benefit by education as the result of a lack of food. There is no limit to those who can draw such attention. It has been suggested that if everybody is responsible, nobody is responsible, but that was not my experience in dealing with necessitous school children in the county to which I belong. We were able to get over difficulties in 1921 and 1926 because we had local administrators who drew the attention of parents to the existing powers. We overcame all obstacles and were able to feed thousands of children during the industrial disputes. Parents were advised how to proceed.
The purpose of this Bill is to avoid reaching the stage of under-nourishment or malnutrition. Children will be fed, and there will be no malnutrition. Moreover, we will not be satisfied with 20 per cent. That is merely our aim in six months' time. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirk-wood) raised the question of a means test. There is no means test so far as this Bill is concerned: —
Where an education authority make provision for a child in pursuance of this section they shall be entitled to recover from the parent of the child the expense thereby incurred…

To feed the child first, to attend to his or her needs—that is the first duty. I want my hon. Friend to know that that is the duty imposed upon local authorities. Where a child is necessitous there is an obligation upon the local authority. Only after the child is fed can the local authority make inquiries into the means of the parents and their ability to pay. It will be for the education authority to determine whether parents can pay. We are not introducing a means test; it will be a matter for local authorities to decide whether they can morally and legally ask parents to pay.

Mr. Kirk wood: Do I understand that a child must be fed first and that afterwards comes the discussion as to who must foot the bill? If so, that is only a little more than I read into the Bill. It is the means test in operation, and I want it removed.

Mr. Westwood: I can give the hon. Member the assurance he wants. The Bill says:
When it is brought to the notice of an education authority that a child attending a school in their area is unable by reason of lack of food or of clothing to take full advantage of the education provided, the education authority shall make such provision for the child out of the education fund as they deem necessary.
It is only after that has been done that they will carry through the other part of the procedure laid down in the Bill of seeing whether the parents are able to meet these legitimate charges.

Mr. Mathers: Not necessarily the whole amount.

Mr. Westwood: It is left to the local authorities. The hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd) said that this is a Socialist Measure. I am proud to be able to stand at this Box and see even a small Measure of this kind brought forward to remove the many obstacles which have stood in the way of feeding school children. My first local election was in 1909, when I was fighting for the retention of Section 6 of the 1908 Act because it made it possible, despite all the obstacles, to feed necessitous school children. Practical experience showed me how difficult it was. One had to satisfy a reactionary school board and one had to call the parents. Sometimes I sat for three hours in the evenings seeing the parents of school children and hearing them say, "Yes, that application form


is signed by me—I have four children at school—I have no wages—I am unemployed—I am poor—I cannot feed my children." It was nauseating to me, and undoubtedly, it was degrading to the parents, but they were willing to do it for the sake of their children. All those obstacles of the past are now going. I do not claim that this is a Socialist Measure. It is a war-time Measure. We are calling mothers into the Services, into munitions-making, and into the factories. I wonder whether the hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew expects us to get a full response to appeals for women to come into industry if we do not make the necessary provision for the children. Clause 1, Sub-section (1) gives only an optional power to the education authority. It says that:
An education authority may purchase and provide food for the purpose of supplying meals to children attending any school in their area both on days when the school meets and on other days.
This will enable the authorities to make for the children that provision which, in many instances, it is impossible for the mothers to make at the present time. Surely, the hon. and gallant Member has forgotten the bombed homes in Scotland and the conditions in which many of our children have to be looked after in the homes to which they have been evacuated. In many cases there are not adequate cooking facilities, and no matter what the mother may desire, it is absolutely impossible for her, with the facilities at her disposal, to provide a well-balanced and well-cooked meal.

Major Lloyd: The Under-Secretary is quoting instances in which I agree the Bill will be an advantage. I have not opposed the Bill in that respect. There are, however, many cases where it is entirely unnecessary to provide meals at school and where the parents are anxious and willing to continue to provide meals. The instances quoted by the hon. Gentleman are exceptional ones, and in those cases, naturally, I agree that the Bill is an advantage.

Mr. Westwood: There is no compulsion upon parents to send children to receive these meals, and those parents who have the facilities and are willing to provide a well-balanced meal will be able to con-

tinue doing so in future. The Bill does not compel them to send their children to receive these meals.

Major Lloyd: I did not suggest that it did, but if you can get a buckshee meal out of the State, why not do so?

Mr. Westwood: I very much resent the suggestion that the working people of this country want buckshee meals. The evidence is all to the contrary. In Glasgow, when the unemployment figures went down, the numbers of necessitous children receiving free meals also went down, which sufficiently proves that as wages were coming into the home to purchase meals for the children, they were not taking advantage of the free meals of the Glasgow Education Department. What applied in Glasgow applied equally in Dundee, Aberdeen and the other cities. The arguments of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for East Renfrew are out of date. Even new-fashioned Tories are not prepared to subscribe to his old-fashioned Toryism. I can assure the hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil) that we will do everything possible to see that they are well cooked meals of real nutritional value, and it is proposed to appoint a nutritional expert for the purpose of supervising the whole scheme.

Mr. Lindsay: Might we have some further enlightenment on the question of meals brought from the centres to the schools, as opposed to meals cooked on the premises?

Mr. Westwood: We have to use to the best advantage the equipment that we already have. I see no reason for providing two or three sets of equipment when it ought to be possible by organisation to utilise one set to full advantage. It is well-cooked meals that we want, of educational as well as of nutritional value. As regards the point raised by the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart), we are not repealing the powers that already exist for the authorities providing, and paying when the need arises, for medical service. But that is a point which can be gone into in Committee. With these, I hope, acceptable explanations I ask for a unanimous vote, and I trust that we shall get the assistance of the House in getting the Bill through as speedily as possible.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for the next Sitting Day.— [Mr. Thomas.]

CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS ACT, 1938.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Captain Waterhouse): I beg to move:
That the Cinematograph Films (Quota Amendment) Order, 1941, proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 15 of the Cinematograph Films Act, 1938, a copy of a draft of which was presented to this House on 3rd December, be made.
This Act makes further provision for securing the renting and the exhibition of a certain proportion of British cinematograph films. These proportions, both as regards renters and exhibitors and as regards short and long films, are set out in the Schedule to the Act. As drafted in the piping times of peace, it was hoped that there would be an annual increment of these quotas of about two and a half per cent., rising from the original figure of 15 up to a maximum of 30 per cent. in 1948, but Section 15 made provision under which the Board of Trade, after consultation with the Cinematograph Films Council, might recommend a modification of these percentage quotas. It also laid down maxima and minima in each case. The Order now before the House is a modification of those figures and has been rendered necessary because of war conditions. A good many studios have been taken over, a certain amount of labour has been drafted away, and, last but by no means least, the Government are making considerable demands on the cinema industry for the production of technical and instructional films which do not affect the quota at all. Under these conditions the Board of Trade have been in consultation with the Cinematograph Films Council, and in agreement with them they have arrived at the figures set out in the first and second schedules of the Order. I hope the House will realise that the last thing the Board of Trade wish to do is to curtail this trade in any way. We have made the existing suggestions with considerable reluctance, but I am satisfied that they are reasonable, and I therefore recommend them to the House.

Mr. T. Smith: I do not intend to go into the vexed question of exhibitors' quotas as we did when the Bill was in Standing Committee, but there are one or two things which I think ought to be said at the present time. It is true that this Order is made in accordance with the Act and after consultation with the Cinematograph Films Council, but it is also true, I am told, that the Council were not unanimous on the point and that the producers in particular and those engaged in the industry are a little perturbed about the present position. We all know that studios have been requisitioned and that demands have been made on British producers. The Minister of Information has been doing a lot of work, and incidentally, some excellent films have been made. The producers, however, are concerned a good deal about the future. One of them tells me that they are a little perturbed about the position that is likely to arise as a result of the United States being in the war. I see in this afternoon's paper that Hollywood has been compelled to curtail its night filming owing to the black-out and other circumstances. Hollywood may have to restrict its production a good deal more than it otherwise would do. The people who are concerned with the production of films in this country are much concerned, and I wonder whether the Parliamentary Secretary could tell us whether any consultations have taken place between the Board of Trade and the people engaged in the production of British films outside the Cinematograph Films Council. If there have not been, there ought to be in order to discuss the position that is likely to arise in future.
Then it is said that we ought to keep in mind the fact that we have become more or less regular attenders at cinemas. I believe I am not far wrong when I say that about 23,000,000 people visit cinemas in Great Britain each week. The provision of the necessary films has to be borne in mind. I have been told that we ought to have films that could be shown in some picture-houses for more than three days a week. I know that exhibitors like to change their programmes twice weekly, particularly in localities where there are not sufficient people to guarantee a full house six nights a week for the same film. There are also other districts which


could provide longer than three days. I am told that we ought to have more films of that character. It is also said that we ought to dig out some of the good old films that have been put by, many of which I could mention. I know of one or two that are worth a re-showing. I believe that in view of the complications of the quota system certain arrangements have to be made before that can be done. While I do not expect an answer to these points from the Parliamentary Secretary to-day, I think he might give some consideration to them, in order that we may make the best of what appears to me to be rather a bad situation and ensure that we have sufficient films for the public.

Captain Waterhouse: By leave of the House, I will deal with one or two points which have been raised. My hon. Friend has referred to the fact that the decision of the Films Council was not unanimous. There is nothing particularly unusual in failing to get unanimity among a body composed of 21 people.

Mr. Smith: Except that in this case those who were in the minority feel that they were over-swept by other people with a different point of view.

Captain Waterhouse: My hon. Friend and myself have very often found ourselves in that unfortunate position in this House. I should like to emphasise the point that the quotas are minima, and that there is nothing to prevent producers in this country, if production at Hollywood is cut, from producing as many films here as they can. If there is a real shortage, the good old law of supply and demand will again come into operation, and more films will be produced here, and with the reduced facilities for obtaining films they will be accepted by renters and in due course passed on to exhibitors. I will go into the question of "digging out" old films. Clearly it will be desirable to do it in some cases. The hon. Member's suggestion that certain films should be exhibited for more than three days a week will also be considered. Then I was asked whether we had had discussions outside the Council. When there is a council which includes representatives of renters, exhibitors and producers, with 10 outside members and with the advantage of the presence of three Members of this House, sitting under an impartial

chairman, I think the hon. Member will agree that we should be unwise to seek trouble by going beyond those accredited representatives of the various sections.

Mr. Smith: I hope the hon. and gallant Gentleman will not misunderstand me. I have put a point which was put to me by someone who was engaged in production work. He asked that the Board of Trade should keep it in mind.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Cinematograph Films (Quota Amendment) Order, 1941, proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 15 of the Cinematograph Films Act, 1938, a copy of a draft of which was presented to this House on 3rd December, be made.

DISPOSAL AND CUSTODY OF DOCUMENTS.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a Select Committee be appointed to examine all documents and records in the custody or control of any officer of the House; to report which of these may be destroyed and which are of sufficient historical interest to justify their preservation; and to recommend methods for securing the safe custody of any classes of documents which ought to be preserved.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: May we have a little information as to the nature of the documents which it is proposed should be destroyed? It is of very great importance that no documents should be destroyed which in later years may be of historical interest.

Major Dugdale (Lord of the Treasury): I understand that the documents include some reports of the House and of Committees. The purpose of the Select Committee is to see that no document of any value is destroyed.

Question put, and agreed to.

Ordered,
That a Select Committee be appointed to examine all documents and records in the custody or control of any officer of the House; to report which of these may be destroyed and which are of sufficient historical interest to justify their preservation and to recommend methods for securing the safe custody of any classes of documents which ought to be preserved.

Committee nominated of Mr. Garro Jones, Sir Percy Harris, Sir Dennis Herbert, Mr. Nicolson and Mr. Pickthorn.

Ordered,
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records.

Ordered,
That Three be the quorum."—[Major Dugdale.]

ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) ACTS, 1882 TO 1936.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity

(Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1936 and confirmed by the Board of Trade under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, and the Public Works Facilities Act, 1930, entitled the Dumfries Electricity (Extension) Special Order, 1941, a copy of which was presented to this House on 14th October, 1941, be approved."—[Captain Waterhouse.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after the hour appointed for the Adjournment of the House, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.